• Monday-What'sUP November 22 - 12:31 pm

This feathered U.P. resident hangs around year round and loves to feed on suet. Frederic W. Koski snapped these two shots of a Hairy Woodpecker just holding on to what's left of a white birch tree. It seems to be posing for the cameraman to get a good shot of its beautiful red head! In researching for my notes on today's picture, I found an interesting tidbit of information about this bird. It actually is attracted to the loud pecking noise the Pileated Woodpecker makes when searching for insects in a tree. When the larger Pileated is done foraging in the excavations it has made, the Hairy cleans up the insects the Pileated has missed. No waste there!

This bird is gorgeous but it looks like he's getting his winter beard and a few rough feathers for the wintertime. Thanks Fred.

I was just reading last night about the Hairy & Downy woodpeckers & how to tell the differences between the two & here are these great pictures!

I love woodpeckers!

Bird is FINN!

Those sweet little feathered friends sure have a mean beak. When we first moved here, in the country, I was rudely awakened one morning to the sounds of a "Jack Hammer". Those little stinkers had pecked perfect holes, in a perfect row, all along the wood siding of my house! I guess since it was new wood, even though it was stained, they were in search of a good meal. What keeps them from getting a headache?

Notice how they use the tail as a balance or brace?

Woodpeckers have enormous beaks/skulls for their size that keeps the brain in place while boring holes in trees. They also have very long tongues to reach insects and other goodies after they have bored the hole.

When we lived in Red Jacket, we had all 3 (Downy, Hairy, and Pileated) that would come for suit in our birch tree; that's how we protected our trees, with suit balls!! It is very true that Hairy's are attarcted to the pileated "jack-hammer" as it searches for insects. We watched several times as Pileated's ripped a tree apart looking for a meal and a Hairy and Downy waiting its turn at the tree. Once the Plieated left, the others came in a cleaned up.....

Chirp! "look at me!I am so beautiful-didya have to mention I eat bugs!"

Love these pics! I smiled when I opened site up this am!

Captain Paul, what is the name of the big woodpecker that we've seen in Ontonagon? He was huge, he looked like Woody the Woodpecker from the cartoons.

I love that mustache!

Probably a Pileated joanie, although I've always thought the Ivory-Billed looked more like Woody. Pileated's are getting pretty common in the UP it seems; I've seen a lot more than in previous years than when I was little.

We live on the edge of the woods north of the carp river which was cut over 100 years ago for charcoal. Now its trees are over mature red oak birch and popal which are dying and full of tasty bugs and therefore a woodpecker's paradice. By having suet available we have seen most of the woodpeckers, including pileated, downy, hairy, redheaded, red belly, black back, yelowbelly sapsucker. The pileated even like our old wooden telephone pole! Luckily our siding is not real wood.

Whenever I tell people about our Yellow-bellied Sap Suckers and our Yellow-shafted Flickers, they think I'm making the names up! What are ya gonna do, guess they're just not into nature!
I've begun to notice the Blue-Jays are starting to dwindle down in this area. Is it because of Global Warming?

The pileated is a shy bird, more often heard than seen. We had a pileated pair peck (say that 10 times fast!) so much at a tree near our cottage in Aura that our neighbors cut the tree down before it fell on our house! Unfortunately, I never got to see them. I've only seen a pileated once, and that was near Brimley. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. At that time, many years ago, I didn't know such a bird really existed!

I build bird houses and right now I have a small woodpecker enlarging the enterance hole to one of the houses, I hope he is going to move in.Like watching them.

mike,
I also had a woodpecker do this one winter to one of my birdhouses. sad part is come time for the robins to take over the nest in the spring the woodpecker was able to get to the babies.

A few springs ago we had a family of Pileated wooodpeckers nest in the woodlot next to our house. You really knew when it was morning, they're not quiet callers. I believe they fledged three young that year. We do see them quite often here in central MN.
Mr. Deb

We saw a pileated woodpecker at a park by Copper Harbor in September. I actually heard it first. It was walking around near a picnic table and making a lot of noise. I was able to video it briefly before it flew up into a tree. I didn't know what kind it was until I showed the video to my dad. When we got back from the UP I went to catch up on the pastycam site and there was a picture of one. It was on the September 15th picture.

Q: What do you get if you cross a parrot with a woodpecker?
A: A bird that talks in morse code

(Groan)

keep that up and your future "yooper" status will be disallowed..........

Capt Paul, is that bird pronounced 'pee-liated' or 'pie-liated'? I've shooed them away from neighbors' siding. They really make a racket hammering on wood stove stacks.

Wanna see woodpeckers? More than 100 at
http://www.camacdonald.com/birding/Sampler2-Woodpeckers.html

pill-lee-ated

lol yea, what Marsha said ;-)

Some bird stores sell a cut out metal plate to protect(or fix) bird houses where the entrance hole has been "enlarged". Course now one of the houses I have with an enlarged entrance is housing a family of flying squirrels.

Thanks, Ray, for the woodpecker web site. I had no idea there were so many.

I promise I won't tell any more stupid jokes!(today)

Joanie, from my observation of 30-some years, the Blue Jays are cyclical; there will be far too many of them at the feeder for several years, and then - blessed relief - just one or two for a while. At least that's the pattern in northern New Jersey.

blue jays are one of the birds that can get west nile virus really easy like crows. If they really are dissapering in your area you might want to let the Department of Natural Resources or game warden someone like that know to have it checked out

I will let the DNR know about the Blue-Jays. Another change here; no more Pheasants, Bobwhites, or Whiporwills,(sp) sure miss that sound at night!

Can't forget the Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers and Flickers! Also in the UP & NLP is the "Blacked-backed Three Toed Woodpecker" (picoides articus) seen occasionally. And also "Northern Three Toed Woodpecker (picoides tridactylus) a bird of northern Canada seen rarely in the UP.
The Flickers can do a number on siding also!

There are now Pielateds reported and seen down here along the Belle River between Richmond and Marine City! I've been looking to get a photo of one! Besides posting it on the bird sites I will put it in my pasty guest album!

I've been on pins & needles the last 2 years waiting to see videos and good photos of the recently "rediscovered" Ivory-billed Woodpeckers ("the Lord-God bird")down in Arkansas and now Florida. They now are seriously and diligently looking all over the south in remaining mature swamp forests in its original range! What an exciting and incredible story! After 60 years no confirmed sightings!

Pronunciation of "Pielated" is OK either way.

Joanie: Pheasants doing OK here in this part of SE MI. Bobwhites & Woodcock have been declining seriously here in recent years. Whip-poor-wills and Ruffed Grouse almost completely disappeared around here many years ago! So sad!

Pheasants, Grouse, Bob-Whites will disappear if corn or bean fields are disappearing from farmland. They thrive on those grains.