It was on the evening of July 26 that we first saw him * * * we noticed a large bird flying heron-like toward us. He passed us and made his way onward toward a tall broken-topped gum tree that stood out black against the sunset. He “landed” on its side near the top, woodpecker fashion, and bobbed downtrunk backwards for several yards. The sky was mauve and gold and crimson, and the great bird loomed blacker and bigger than he really was, limned sharply against it. He had not dropped along like the smaller woodpeckers, but had kept on more steadily, very like a heron, with only slight risings and fallings. After a rest on the gum tree of some three minutes he flung himself into the air and dove down into the Buck Hill Gorge.
Vickers (1915) characterizes the bird’s flight as “powerful and straight-forward, his head and neck carrying his powerful beak like a spear * * * [the bird] large as a crow and with a certain short, sturdy, kingfisherlike aspect.”
In general conclusion it may be said that the pileated woodpecker has the habit and manner of a giant, forest-loving flicker.
Voice.—Throughout the greater part of the year the pileated woodpecker is a relatively silent bird, but during the nesting season drumming and calling are frequent. The usual call is a cackle, resembling that of the flicker, though louder and of more sonorous quality. The “song” of the white-breasted nuthatch so far resembles it in pitch and tempo that a nuthatch near at hand may, for an instant, suggest the woodpecker far away. The ka, ka, ka of the woodpecker’s cackle is variable in quality, in speed of iteration, and in continuity, and seems to be expressive, sometimes of alarm, sometimes of companionship, sometimes of contentment. Aretas A. Saunders (1935) has noted that often there is rise in pitch at the beginning of a rendition and a slight fall at the end; and Samuel Scoville, Jr. (1920), distinguishing this from the flicker’s similar call, has remarked on “a queer little quirk at the end.” When a pair of birds cackle in alternation, as commonly they do, a difference in pitch will be noted; but whether that be a constant sexual difference, or a matter of individuality merely, I cannot say.
In the nesting season the mated birds have another flickerlike wuck-a-wuck call that seems to be peculiarly associated with their conjugal relationship. They use it in courtship and when they relieve one another in attendance at the nest.
Dr. Sutton (1930) mentions yet another call and describes it as “whining notes, suggesting the mew of the yellow-bellied sapsucker.” But it is more than that. It is a loud cry, that resembles the scream of a hawk. It is commonly reiterated slowly in five or six repetitions. Unless one were to follow the sound and discover its source, he would hardly impute it to this bird. It too, I believe, is a call peculiar to the nesting season.
When the bird is in flight a slowly uttered puck, puck may sometimes be heard, and sometimes what for lack of a better term may be called a creaking of the moving wings.
Besides these there is a high-pitched scream—“a bugle call,” says Florence Merriam Bailey (1902), with which the bird greets the rising sun. Horace W. Wright (1912) has noted that in June the bird is first heard within a few minutes after sunrise and has described the awakening thus: “There are eight records, when a bird has been heard loudly rapping in the distance with slow and measured blows or has called lustily and long, sometimes answered by another.”
Enemies.—The number of eggs laid suggests that there must be some wastage: that somewhere in the round of life the bird must be peculiarly exposed to destruction; and to this point Dr. Sutton (1930) speaks:
The Duck Hawk (Rhynchodon peregrinus anatum) appears to be the chief, indeed perhaps the only, natural enemy of this woodpecker in this State [Pennsylvania]. At Spruce Creek, Huntingdon County, where these falcons have nested for years, I found, on March 21, 1921, the head and plumage of a male woodpecker which had not been dead long. Near Palmerton, Carbon County, I saw a Duck Hawk pursue and with ease strike down a pileated woodpecker that had started to fly across the river. The hawk flew so fast that the woodpecker seemed to have been unaware of the pursuit. A cloud of feathers burst from the body of the victim as it collapsed. The duck hawk apparently winters regularly along some of our streams, and takes whatever comes along, with a preference, perhaps, for the somewhat larger birds; and to it the comparatively clumsy log cock falls easy prey. So far as I know, neither the great horned owl nor the Cooper’s hawk ever captures the bird, and our stomach examinations of several hundred Goshawks revealed none of its bones or plumage, though this savage predator no doubt occasionally captures such birds as are to be found throughout the winter.
R. B. Simpson (1910) wrote: “I once shot a Sharp-shinned Hawk that was making a desperate attempt to catch a pileated * * *. A year or two ago in summer along a trout stream in virgin forest back in the mountains [of northern Pennsylvania], I came to a mossy spot where a pileated had been wrecked and a close inspection showed the tracks of a huge wildcat who had no doubt caught the big woodpecker on the ground or on a log.” See also Bendire (1895).
In addition to man’s disturbance of habitat with which this paper has had largely to do, the following matters are noteworthy:
Pennant (1785) wrote that the Indians made a practice of decking their calumets with the crests of these birds. And see Bendire (1895).
Audubon (1842) said of the pileated woodpecker: “Its flesh is tough, of a bluish tint, and smells so strongly of the worms and insects on which it generally feeds, as to be extremely unpalatable.” Sutton (1930), however, was able to show, both by the testimony of living witnesses and by written record as well, that these birds, along with other smaller birds, were once commonly exposed for sale as food in city markets.
Major Bendire (1895) wrote:
I have occasionally seen bunches of these birds, numbering from four to twelve, exposed for sale in the markets of Washington, D. C. * * * I tried to eat one, when short of meat, while traveling through the Blue Mountains of Oregon, but I certainly can not recommend it. It feeds to a great extent on the large black wood ants, which impart to it a very peculiar, and to me an extremely unpleasant flavor, a kind of sweet-sour taste, which any amount of seasoning and cooking does not disguise, and I consider it as a very unpalatable substitute for game of any kind.
Winter.—As is true of other members of the family, the pileated woodpecker may in fall be found digging for himself a cavity for winter occupancy. Few birds other than the woodpeckers make what may be called habitations, except as part of or incident to the activities of reproduction. And in the case of the woodpeckers, while I know that in particular instances these winter retreats are not so used, I am unable to say that they never are subsequently used as nesting cavities.
Hoyes Lloyd (1932) wrote:
One of the most delightful bird adventures we have had at Rockcliffe Park [near the City of Ottawa] was the visit to us of a pileated woodpecker. It first came at 4:30 p. m., on October 12, 1928, and excavated a hole in a hollow basswood for sleeping quarters * * *. The chips, from live wood, were up to three inches by two inches in area, and an eighth of an inch thick. Each chip had two or three gouge-like beak marks across its surface. At 4:50 p. m. on the next day the pileated came home, and although we were all outdoors, it went directly to its own tree and after a brief survey of affairs in the vicinity, retired. The approach was silent except, possibly for a single Flicker-like note in the distance. About 9 a. m., on the 14th, our bird woke me up with a loud kuk-kuk-kuk call and it looked very large as it climbed up the home basswood. Promptly at quarter to five it came home, undoubtedly after a day among the big hardwoods of the neighborhood. We were all impressed by its great length of neck, as it swung its head with a curious bobbing motion, that was used, without doubt, to give a view on each side of the home tree, before going into the hole for the night. A pileated, thought to be the same bird, came back on March 22, 1929, possibly, or certainly on the 23rd, and slept in its winter home.
Prof. Brooks writes (MS.): “At French Creek [Upshur County, W. Va.], two birds used a nesting cavity as a roosting place during the following winter.”