Giant woodpecker was a surprise find Bird impresses UMaine students

I would have missed the bird if it hadn’t let loose with one of its distinctive calls. My mind was preoccupied as I left Fogler Library, and I wasn’t paying much attention to my surroundings. From the corner of my eye, I saw a large, dark object hanging from the lower branches of a crabapple tree. My distracted mind catalogued it as a piece of garbage – perhaps a black plastic bag had gotten snarled in the tree’s branches. I continued on my way.

That is, until the loud call note brought me up short. In a second I had identified the call and its maker.

The “plastic bag” was actually a pileated woodpecker.

The crow-sized bird hung almost upside down as it picked the tiny fruits from the branches. Its mostly black body with its striking white patterns and scarlet crest stood out against the snow and the bark of the tree.

It seemed oblivious to the many people passing within feet of it, which I thought unusual. Everything I had read about these birds stated they were shy and wary of human activity. But here was this bird, feasting away on the late winter harvest, seemingly without a care.

Several students noticed me staring and stopped to see what the attraction was. Most reacted by using colorful, colloquial epithets that I cannot print in full here. Suffice to say, the “giant woodpecker” surprised and impressed them.

The pileated is indeed our largest North American woodpecker. (The similar ivory-billed woodpecker is larger, but many experts think it became extinct within the last several decades. However, several possible sightings of the bird in recent years have prompted a team of ornithologists to search for the bird in its old southern haunts – perhaps, against all odds, it survives somewhere. But that is a story for another column.)

The limited amount of red on the bird’s head (which extends down the forehead on the male) and lack of a red “mustache” distinguished this bird as a female. I guessed she must have come from last summer’s brood, for young birds will wander until they find suitable territories and a mate. Once they do, they remain together for life and remain on their breeding territories – which may be up to 200 acres in size – throughout the year.

In the process of choosing a mate and a territory, both the male and female will drum loudly on trees or any other surface capable of producing good resonance. Their drumming can be distinguished from that of other woodpeckers by its tendency to start loudly and taper off softly at the end. At this time, they will also sing a series of undulating notes, which sounds like “kek-kek-kek-kek-kek.”

In the meantime, the lone female outside the library will search the forests (and the University of Maine campus), for wild fruits, as well as her favorite food of carpenter ants and wood-boring beetles lying dormant under the bark of trees.

Correction

The end of last week’s column on Great horned owls should have read: “The male’s voice is deeper and richer than the female’s…and consists of four to five hoots, represented phonetically as ‘who’s awake-me too.’ The female’s response is higher-pitched and may contain six to eight hoots.”

Chris Corio’s column on birds is published each Saturday. Corio, a volunteer at Fields Pond Nature Center in Holden, can be reached at fieldspond@juno.com