05/20/2026
Most people hear a pileated woodpecker for years before they see one. The hammering sounds like someone beating a dead tree with a bat.
Then she lands on a trunk ten feet away — and the reaction is always the same.
She's the size of a crow. Every other woodpecker at the feeder fits in your hand. Your brain builds a template from downies and hairies: woodpecker equals small. The pileated breaks the template.
The rectangular holes in dead trees are hers. No other woodpecker cuts that shape. And the cavity she drills for nesting becomes the most competed-over address in the woods after she leaves — species that can't excavate their own depend on the ones she abandons.
The dead tree she's working on is the most productive thing in the yard 🌿
