Woodpeckers

We have several different species of woodpecker at the Boggy Thicket.  Near as I can tell, there are at least three – the Pileated Woodpeckers seen above, Red-headed Woodpeckers that are mid-sized woodpeckers about the size of a blue jay, and a small woodpecker I have yet to identify.

If you look carefully, you’ll see a pair of Pileated Woodpeckers sitting on a limb in the picture below.

The Pileated Woodpeckers are huge – the largest woodpecker in North America – and their call is a laughing sound.  Not exactly like Woody of the cartoons, but his may have been patterned after theirs:

If you ever wondered what Pileated means, the pileum, is the area of a bird’s head from the top of the bill over the head and to the nape of its neck. A bird is said to be pileated if it has a crest on the pileum area. The pileated woodpecker is no exception. Both male and female pileated woodpeckers have a very prominent bright red crests that come to a point in the back of their heads.

The small unidentified woodpeckers are the only birds other than hummingbirds that will perch and drink from the hummingbird feeders.

Several years ago, I was sure I saw an Ivory-Billed Woodpecker in our woods, but maybe not – They look a lot like their Pileated cousins, and although there have been searches for them recently in the Big Thicket area of Southeast Texas, and some reported sightings in Louisiana this year, they are said to have been extinct for 100 years.