They also lap up ants by reaching with their long tongues into crevices. Pileated woodpeckers often chip out large and roughly rectangular holes in trees while searching out insects, especially ant colonies. They also eat fruits, nuts, and berries, including poison ivy berries. Pileated woodpeckers mainly eat insects, especially carpenter ants and wood-boring beetle larvae. From 1966 - 2015 the population of pileated woodpecker has, on average, increased by greater than 1.5% per year throughout the northeastern U.S., the Maritimes, the Ohio River Valley, and around the Great Lakes. Efforts to restore woodland by removing invasive honeysuckle and buckthorn seem to benefit them, as the removal of brush and shrubbery facilitates their foraging on the ground and in the lower stratum. However, they also inhabit smaller woodlots as long as they have a scattering of tall trees. They specifically prefer mesic habitats with large, mature hardwood trees, often being found in large tracts of forest. This bird favors mature forests and heavily wooded parks. The pileated woodpecker's breeding habitat is forested areas across Canada, the eastern United States, and parts of the Pacific Coast. The only North American birds of similar plumage and size are the ivory-billed woodpecker of the southeastern United States and Cuba, and the related imperial woodpecker of Mexico, both of which are critically endangered and possibly extinct. Two species found in the Old World, the white-bellied and black woodpeckers, are closely related and occupy the same ecological niche in their respective ranges that the pileated occupies in North America. Adult males have a red line from the bill to the throat in adult females these are black. The flight of these birds is strong and direct, but undulates in the way characteristic of woodpeckers. Pileated Woodpeckers are mainly black with a red crest, and have a white line down the sides of the throat. The northern subspecies is generally slightly larger than the southern. On rare occasions, they will roost in the same tree but, even then, each has its own roosting cavity.Plate 111 of the Birds of America by John James Audubon, depicting pileated woodpeckers (1 ♀, 3 ♂♂)Īdults are 40 to 49 cm (16 to 19 in) long, span 66 to 75 cm (26 to 30 in) across the wings, and weigh 250 to 400 g (8.8 to 14.1 oz), with an average weight of 300 g (11 oz). However, the male and female birds roost separately at night. A pileated woodpecker pair will share territory throughout the year.The nest cavity tends to be more roundish than the oblong-shaped cavity excavated by these birds in search of insects.
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