PILEATED WOODPECKER
PR

The pileated woodpecker is the largest of the family (excluding the ivory-billed, generally thought extinct) and certainly the most outstanding. This distinction is best exemplified by some of the names given it by writers: great god woodpecker, good god woodpecker, lord god woodpecker and cock of the woods.

The crow-sized woodpecker is dressed like a medieval Galahad or Gawain. Slate-black plumage resembles a coat of mail, and this is surmounted by a jaunty red crest worn with the aplomb of those knights of old. His call is a wild and commanding "kuk-kuk, kuk-kuk" that resounds through the trees for as much as a mile.

The nesting holes of these birds are usually from twenty to seventy feet from the ground and nearly always in a dead tree. Sometimes the hole is drilled to a depth of three feet. After the nest is abandoned, the hole is utilized by screech owls, wood ducks and squirrels.

These large birds have adapted well to man and seem to be generally on the increase in population, particularly where wooded sections of several acres are available.

The pileated woodpecker expresses the spirit of the wild and should be accorded the greatest protection possible.

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