Bird of the week 2024 | Pileated woodpecker

Pileated woodpecker [MichaelWarren.com]

Pileated woodpecker

This magnificent woodpecker, the largest in North America, is noisy and industrious, often heard banging away at trees in mature forests. It excavates large holes for nesting, but typically doesn’t return to the same nest year after year. But the cavities it leaves behind are used by other birds, such as wood ducks. The pileated woodpecker has a superficial resemblance to the almost certainly extinct ivory-billed woodpecker, last seen in 1944.