March 26, 2017
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Pileated Woodpeckers 001
Pileated Woodpeckers are one of my favorite birds along the North Shore. This time of year they become very active. You can hear them marking their territory by rapping on various dead trees. They usually pick thin dry splinters of wood that have a loud ring when hammered on with their strong beaks. The sound carries a long ways.
When they call back and forth to each other our 2-year-old granddaughter says it sounds like they are laughing.
I heard this pair on a tree just behind our house and decided to follow them for a couple of hours.
Pileated Woodpeckers 002
The male has the red mustache. It is black on the female.
Pileated Woodpeckers 003
After the male flew off the female started to forage for carpenter ants and larvae inside this birch.
Pileated Woodpeckers 004
It doesn’t take them long to hammer out a hole in a tree while looking for food.
Pileated Woodpeckers 005
They have amazingly long tongues that they use to search out ants.
Pileated Woodpeckers 006
Here you can see that the tongue is going into an insect hole. The tip of the tongue is barbed so it can extract the insects.
Pileated Woodpeckers 007
This photo of a young pileated I took a couple of years ago. It shows just how long their tongues are. The tongue is longer than the woodpecker’s head. The tongue doesn’t start at the back of the throat like us. It starts at the base of the top beak goes all the way around the head over the top, back and bottom of the scull and then comes out the throat and mouth.