The pileated woodpecker: Hunter and survivor

Let’s say you’re a carpenter ant. It’s December. You’re dormant, asleep in a rotting beech tree.

Having feasted on decaying hardwood until late autumn’s cold made you drowsy, you and a thousand or so other ants have prepared for winter by hollowing out a sleeping chamber deep within its trunk. Dozens of tunnels converge here. All are quiet now, empty until spring warms the world and ants grow hungry again.

Your ant friends surround you, providing comfort in a swarm. Let December winds bluster. Let winter kill those unprepared. You have found unassailable refuge.

What’s that noise? That drumming sound? A dull thudding at first, it quickly intensifies. There’s something out there, clinging to the trunk. The drilling grows louder, in machine gun bursts. A pinhole of light appears, then becomes blotted out by something black and spear-shaped.

If ant prayers exist, you should call on them now. The spear is a woodpecker bill. Through its charcoal mandibles, a long, worm-like tongue has emerged. Covered with saliva, as tacky as fly paper, it curls about the sleeping chamber, suctioning ants from suspended animation toward eternal rest.

The pileated woodpecker has struck again. Noble savage of the darkened forest, stump breaker without peer, this crow-sized woodpecker rarely misses.

Methodically, it cleans out the colony, gouging, in the process, a vertical cavity 6 inches deep, 4 inches wide and 2 feet long. Wood chips the size of your thumb fly everywhere. Bark slabs litter the ground. A wild, laughing call pierces late autumn trees to the bone.

Then, with crimson crest flaring, white and black wings flashing and future looking bright, the hunter swoops off in search of another hunting tree.

Were you to follow, you might get close. At nesting and feeding trees, the pileated woodpecker sometimes let people view them from fairly close distances. Found in mature woodlands throughout our area, these striking black birds are unforgettable once you’ve seen them. They leave a lasting impression.

These birds weren’t always doing as well as they’re doing right now. Pileated woodpeckers had disappeared from many parts of our region by 1900. The reason was farming. As forests were cleared for cultivation, woodpecker habitat disappeared. Many ornithologists of the period predicted the big birds would never recover, that they would be driven permanently into the most primitive wilderness regions.

Fortunately, the experts were wrong. Small-scale agriculture has fallen on hard times. Countless small farms have forsaken the plow, their fields quickly reverting to forest. In direct proportion to this increase in forestland, the pileated woodpecker has returned.

You now have a good chance of seeing this bird if you travel through big timber country. Or even if your backyard abuts a few acres of forest. Listen for the loud, piercing laugh. Watch for those flashing wings. Ponder the lot of a carpenter ant, asleep and not knowing its fate.

To follow Rick Marsi’s outdoor exploits, visit rickmarsi.com.