Outdoors: Pileated woodpeckers are pounding now

Pileated woodpeckers are the magnificent giants of our local head-hammering world. While our most common downy woodpeckers weigh less than an ounce, our pileateds can weigh almost a pound.

Worldwide, they’re second in size to only the great slaty woodpeckers of India. The two, largest-ever woodpeckers, the imperial and the ivory-billed, are tragically both now extinct. The trees they needed for nesting — as well as the two medallions of meat on their breasts — were just too valuable for too many people to not exploit.

In 1988, when looking for the last ivory-billeds on earth, I spoke to villagers in eastern Cuba. They admitted having regularly eaten them, but hadn’t seen any in recent years.

In contrast, as our forests have matured — a factor that has led to the local decline of our young-growth-needing ruffed grouse — reports of our once seldom-seen pileated woodpeckers have become more numerous. Places like the Auburn Sportsman’s Club that had been regularly timbered heavily hadn’t had them for many decades. So it was a great surprise for us to recently band one in our tick, Lyme disease and bird research. Banding assistant Dr. Laurence Reich gladly risked his hand being chiseled during the release of the pileated.

Signs of these near-crow-size tree-drillers include the large, vertically oval holes that they chisel. The bases of those insect-filled trees often have telltale signs of big wood chips. Woodpecker bills are very sharp-tipped. I remember banding a chestnut woodpecker in the Amazon and having it draw blood every time it pecked my hand. A trunk-burrowing beetle larva has no guarantee of safety there.

Considering how infrequently they’re observed in the suburbs, I was more than surprised to see a pileated two weeks ago in Grafton as I looked out my study window. I’m sure he had traveled there seeking a mate.

He was flaunting all he had on the border of my neighbor’s property, where there is a row of very tall, dead ash trees, victims of their own pandemic here in New England over the last two decades. I didn’t want them cut down when they died, as big dead trees provide food and nesting cavities for many species.

I got out my 10X Swarovski binoculars and enjoyed his display, walking vertically up the trunk with his short, strong legs and sharp claws, drilling for food and intermittently drumming to other woodpeckers on the resonant trunk. At the same time that he was loudly pounding his head to attract a female, he was simultaneously trying to persuade other males of his kind to stay far away.

I thought of how we’d severely damage our brains if we so violently hammered our heads against wood to express our desires. Woodpeckers can do this only because they have a tiny brain with little space to move around in their skull. It helps that their pecks are rapid and brief. They also benefit from spongy, compressible bone in their foreheads and flexible bills. Critical to their cerebrally undamaging pecking is a hyoid bone that divides behind the bill, wraps around the brain case, and passes on both sides of the spinal cord to help eliminate 99% of the shock. Their protective anatomical adaptations were the inspiration for designing the black boxes on airplanes to survive a crash intact.

Woodpeckers’ pecking does cause their brains to heat up, though, so we observe them frequently pausing between outbursts. I was too far away to witness whether this woodpecker’s long, sticky, bristled tongue successfully pulled out any grubs from the dead ash — or if he were just drumming.

Intrusively at that moment, a pair of songbirds started territorially harassing him, soon driving him off to my great disappointment. But the pair excitedly turned out to be bluebirds, which I hadn’t noticed in our yard before.

Nesting in our neighborhood, they were intolerant of any large, potentially predatory species. Of course, the woodpecker wouldn’t have bothered them. He was interested in beetle larvae — and excavating cavities to nest in, inadvertently providing homes for other birds, and finding his female.

While I love observing all species of woodpeckers — even the ground-feeding flickers that live on ants — I annually get annoyed by one of them drumming on my metal stove piping, shingles or wood trim every March and April. When they drum on metal, they can sound like a jackhammer. But spring here would be so incomplete without them.

Input needed

In the local game bird world, important decisions are about to be made regarding upcoming hunting season dates. Upland game hunter advocate Ernie Foster, who is an inspiration for Grouse Unlimited and a woodcock hunting authority, is asking local sportsmen to provide their written input to the decision makers of the Massachusetts Fish & Wildlife Board by April 15 regarding the starting date for woodcock.

Both local breeders and birds from southeastern Canada and northern New England provide us with great wing shooting. The fear is that the board will choose Oct. 8 rather than Oct. 3 to start the season. In either case, the season would extend for 45 days.

Foster suggests the earlier date “because the vast majority of resident birds have left the state by the 8th, and many flight birds have already passed through. An October 8 woodcock season opening would cause loss of upland hunting days, since the earlier October days were open to hunting in the past and most birds are long gone by mid-November.”

Foster would alternatively recommend beginning the season “October 1 like our sister states to the north and New York.” That would give us a final day of Nov. 21 and more quality days afield.

Foster suggests concerned sportsmen write their recommendations to the board via susan.sacco@mass.gov or by mail to Fisheries & Wildlife Board, MassWildlife Headquarters, 1 Rabbit Hill Road, Westboro, MA 01581.

No list for now

Normally, we’d be publishing the week’s specific stocking lists. But to minimize crowding at recently stocked areas, MassWildlife is temporarily removing stocking date information. Just know that the body of water that you have annually come to know and love for its trout fishing has been and will be stocked by a tireless and totally dedicated staff.

Season on hold

The pandemic is impacting our outdoor tradition all around the world. Party boats in Rhode Island remain tied to the docks until at least April 30. Several hunting seasons have been canceled, and many public lands, including some national parks, are being closed. Early spring hunts for both black and brown bear have been canceled in Alaska to protect communities from outsiders. Kodiak alone will lose $3 million.

For the same reasons, a Nebraska Indian reservation has canceled spring turkey hunts on tribal lands to protect their people from outsiders, some of whom are expressing outrage at being denied access. In Washington, both the early youth turkey hunt and a number of spring black bear hunts were also cancelled. Let’s hope our spring turkey hunt begins April 27 as scheduled.

—Contact Mark Blazis at markblazissafaris@gmail.com.