It's true that nature is full of surprises, but nature's predictability also is a source of pleasure.
Every year, the seasons roll around, more or less in the expected time and sequence, and each season brings its suite of plants, birds and animal behaviors.
This time of year brings the pileated woodpeckers.
Or rather, this time of year brings reports of pileated woodpeckers. The woodpeckers are with us year 'round, but they are wary and secretive birds. Only in the late fall, when the young are safely fledged, do these woodpeckers take on the prominence that their size suggests should be due them.
For pileated woodpeckers are enormous, up to about 20 inches in length with a wingspan of up to 30 inches.
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What's more, pileated woodpeckers are boldly colored, and this helps make them conspicuous.
Then, too, pileated woodpeckers have a somewhat comical appearance not on their own account, of course, but because this species was the model for Woody Woodpecker, whom so many Americans remember from the Saturday cartoon shows. I remember watching these before afternoon movie matinees in the old days, and during the morning cartoon programs when television became widespread.
For these reasons, people tend to notice pileated woodpeckers. Perhaps no species has awakened an interest in birds in so many people.
Pileated woodpeckers are close to the western edge of their range in the Red River Valley. They occur in the Devils Lake area and in the Pembina River Gorge, as well.
They've followed the forests into all of these regions.
Mature riverine woodland is the preferred habitat for pileated woodpeckers. The main stem of the Red River provides this, and so do some of its tributaries, including the Sheyenne River, which provides a nearly continuous narrow path of forest from the Red River to the Devils Lake area, and the Pembina River, which formed the gorge.
Lately, this habitat has undergone a significant change, and this has benefited pileated woodpeckers. Dutch elm disease has killed thousands of American elms, which once were the principle species of our riverside woods.
The death of the elms has provided dead wood for the woodpeckers to excavate. They do this in search of food, including various adult insects and their larvae, which we call grubs.
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Equally important, the dead trees provide ample nesting opportunities for the woodpeckers, which excavate their own nesting cavities.
The combination of abundant food and good nesting cover has led to a population explosion among pileated woodpeckers. In turn, this has led to an expansion of their range.
Whereas earlier, one wouldn't expect to encounter pileated woodpeckers very far from the Red River itself, they now have become regular in farm shelterbelts during summer and in farmyards during winter.
They invade farmyards for the same reason they show up in Grand Forks at this time of year. They are foraging for food, and they find it in ornamental fruit trees and at feeders that humans put up for them.
Pileated woodpeckers aren't especially shy birds at this season. Not only do they appear in public, so to speak, but they are also fairly loud. Not unexpectedly, their call gives a hint of Woody Woodpecker's well-known rattle. Usually, this is rendered as "Yucka! Yucka! Yucka!" or "Wika! Wicka! Wick!"
The noise often leads a bird spotter to find the pileated woodpecker.
Once in sight, the bird is unmistakable both for its size and its coloration. Pileated woodpeckers appear black when alight, but in flight, they show substantial white in the wings. Both sexes have a ribbon of white up the side of the breast and neck ending at the stout, strong beak. Males have red over the forehead onto a prominent crest and a red spot behind the bill and below the eye. Females lack this spot and have red only on the crest, not the forehead.
Of course, it's the crest that betrays the pileated woodpecker as Woody himself.
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Jacobs is editor and publisher of the Herald.
