Bird of the Year Celebration - Mar. 22

The Bird of the Year program helps teach kids and adults about a new bird each year. In 2025, the Friends of Seven Islands has selected the Pileated Woodpecker as the Bird of the Year.

Common Name: Pileated Woodpecker

Scientific name: Dryocopus pileatus

Length: 16.5 to 19.5 in (41.9 to 49.5 cm)

Weight: 10.9 oz

Average Lifespan: 12 years estimated

Pileated Woodpeckers are crow-sized birds with a long chisel-like bill and a prominent red crest. The male and female look similar. The identifying difference is the male has a red mustache stripe and the female has a black one. Juveniles resemble adults of their respective sexes, but juveniles have dark eyes.

Worldwide, pileated woodpecker‘s are the third largest extant species in the world, and the largest woodpecker in North America. “Pileated“ refers to the bird’s prominent red crest, from the Latin, meaning “capped”.

DIET: Pileated Woodpeckers eat ants and wood boring beetle larvae. They will also eat fruits and nuts. They are known to come to suet feeders. They have a long, pointed tongue with barbs and sticky saliva to catch and extract ants from tunnels.

NESTING: The large nest hole made by the male attracts the female for mating and raising their young. The male makes a large rectangular hole. The nest cavity is unlined except for wood chips. Both parents incubate 3 to 5 eggs for 12 to 16 days. The average clutch size is four per nest.

BEHAVIOR: Pileated woodpeckers depend on large, standing dead trees and fallen logs in their forest habitat. These birds are monogamous and hold large territories. A pair will defend their territory in all seasons, but will tolerate new arrivals during the winter.

FUN FACTS: Pileated woodpeckers excavate a new nest cavity each year. They do not use the same cavity twice. This provides nesting cavities for other cavity nesting birds, small mammals, and reptiles.

Their calls are loud and described as a “whinny”, rising and then falling in pitch and volume.

The oldest recorded Pileated Woodpecker was a male that was at least 13 years old when he was recaptured and re-released during banding operations in Maryland.