Pileated Woodpecker

The pileated woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus) is a big, dashing bird with a flaming crest, mostly black woodpecker native to North America. An insectivore, it i...
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The pileated woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus) is a big, dashing bird with a flaming crest, mostly black woodpecker native to North America. An insectivore, it inhabits deciduous forests in eastern North America, the Great Lakes, the boreal forests of Canada, and parts of the Pacific Coast. It is the largest confirmed extant woodpecker species in North America, with the possible exception of the ivory-billed woodpecker, which the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed be reclassified as extinct. It is also the third largest species of woodpecker in the world, after the great slaty woodpecker and the black woodpecker. "Pileated" refers to the bird's prominent red crest, from the Latin pileatus meaning "capped".
Adults are (16 to 19 in. long, span 26 to 30 in. across the wings, and weigh 8 to 14 oz.
Pileated woodpeckers often chip out large and roughly rectangular holes in trees while searching out insects, especially ant colonies. Usually, pileated woodpeckers excavate their large nests in the cavities of dead trees. Woodpeckers make such large holes in dead trees that the holes can cause a small tree to break in half. The roost of a pileated woodpecker usually has multiple entrance holes.

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