#DOWNY WOODPECKER CHARACTERISTICS PATCH#

Like many woodpeckers, their long retractable tongues have barbs and sticky saliva to snare bugs. Fruit from serviceberry and Oregon grape is sometimes on the menu, as well as nuts. They also glean (pick) insects off branches and scale bark off trees in search of food. With their stout, chisel-like beaks, pileated woodpeckers dig for ants and wood-boring beetle larvae deeper than most other woodpeckers can reach, past the tree’s cambium (thin layer of living, growing tissue). They range from northern California up into Canada and back down into much of the eastern U.S., wherever big trees and decaying wood are found.

Pileated woodpeckers occupy relatively large territories (>1000 acres in the West) year-round. Old-growth forest meets these habitat needs, and Douglas-fir, especially in western Oregon, is a choice nest and roost tree.

Pileated woodpeckers also need trees big enough to contain the large nest cavities they excavate. Snags, logs, and weakened live trees provide the soft wood inhabited by carpenter ants, a favorite food. Habitat and Rangeĭeath and decay mean survival for pileated woodpeckers. Like most woodpeckers, its toes are arranged in a zygodactyl pattern-2 forward and 2 back-to better grasp and climb on trees.

#DOWNY WOODPECKER CHARACTERISTICS PATCH#

Females lack the red malar stripe and have a small yellowish-brown patch on their foreheads in front of the red crest. Males are slightly larger than females and are distinguished by a red malar (“mustache”) stripe and solid red from the crest to the beak. In flight, large, white underwing patches show.

Perched, it appears almost all black except for a black-, white- and red-striped head with a pointed red crest. You’re more likely to hear its drumming or high-pitched, piercing alarm call drifting through the forest.ĭryocopus pileatus is a crow-sized (40–49 cm long, (15–19 in)) member of the woodpecker family, Picidae. Note red mustache and red coloring from crest down to the beak.įor the largest woodpecker in the country, the pileated woodpecker is surprisingly hard to see.

Downy woodpecker characteristics