Pileated Woodpeckers

Some PEI wildlife signs are subtle, while others are hard to miss! These are the unmistakable holes of a Pileated Woodpecker. 

Pileated Woodpeckers are roughly crow-sized birds, with black bodies, white stripes down their necks, white patches on their wings (visible in flight), and a dramatic red crest on their heads. If you can imagine Woody Woodpecker, you’ll be in the ballpark: the Pileated Woodpecker is said to have been the inspiration for that cartoon character. 

The Pileated is our largest woodpecker, and its superior size and strength allow it to dig much deeper into trees than any of our other species. Large, deep holes – often with squared corners as seen here – are characteristic. The ‘rule of two’ is useful when identifying Pileated sign: look for holes at least two inches long, two inches deep, and with wood chips roughly two inches big on the ground below the excavation. 

Woodpeckers are among the first animals to excavate a dead or dying tree, both to get at the tasty insects inside and to build their nests. Woodpecker bills carry all sorts of wood-decay fungi, and each time the bird pecks wood, the tree is inoculated with fungi that speed up the decay process. This fungi-plant-animal interaction benefits everyone involved: the fungi get spread around the forest, the tree decomposes and is recycled more efficiently, and the softened wood becomes easier for the Woodpecker (and other birds) to excavate. 

Pileated Woodpeckers were once common on PEI, but land clearing for agriculture and settlement in the 1800s reduced their habitat and thus their numbers. Local naturalist Francis Bain made no mention of them in 1890. Writing about Island birds in 1893, Jonathan Dwight Jr. said they were formerly common but he found no evidence of them still being present. In 1908, John MacSwain wrote they were “becoming rarer as the forests disappear” and noted a mounted specimen on display in the Provincial Building. 

The birds were believed to have been extirpated from PEI by the early 1900s, and so there was much excitement when the first Pileated sign in nearly a century was confirmed in Kings County in 1987! Since then, birds and sign have been found in all three counties. Pileated Woodpeckers have returned to the Island, although they are still considered rare here. 

Keep your eyes open for the unmistakable signs of the Pileated Woodpecker in the forests of PEI Untamed!