Wood Carvers: The Fascinating World of Woodpeckers

North Carolina’s eight species of this delightful, noisy bird have some cool adaptations… and serve an important role in our ecosystem.
by Mike Dunn

The first time I paid much attention to a woodpecker was as a boy, while deer hunting with my father. If he heard the loud piping call of a Pileated woodpecker, he would say, “Be still, that wood hen [his name for them] has seen something moving in the woods and it might be a deer.” Sure enough, over the years, the alarm has alerted me to many things moving through the forest, from deer to hawks to humans.

Nowadays, I see seven of the eight NC species on our property in Chatham County, with the diminutive Downy and the raucous Red-bellied woodpeckers being the most common, as they are regular visitors to our bird feeders. Most of us know a woodpecker when we see one — they’re often hanging on the side of a tree and are, appropriately, pecking at wood. But a lot of people don’t know much about them. 

There are eight species of woodpeckers in North Carolina, and all but one (the Red-cockaded woodpecker), can be seen in the forests and suburban wood lots of the Triangle. Woodpeckers are a keystone species in a forest, as they can have a significant impact on other species and the ecosystem. They create cavities in trees for nesting and as they forage; those cavities can then be used by a host of other creatures for nest and roost sites, as well as dens.

Chief among the beneficiaries of woodpecker construction are other cavity-nesting birds like bluebirds, Wood ducks and small owls, and mammals such as Eastern Gray and Southern flying squirrels. They are also an important consumer of forest insects, and they may serve as agents of dispersal for various types of fungi, by carrying their spores from tree to tree.

Watching a Pileated hammer away at a tree, you can’t help but wonder how they can do that without getting a concussion — or at least a throbbing headache. So it’s no surprise that woodpeckers share many specialized adaptations for their lifestyle. To help with banging their heads against trees, their large, chisel-like beak penetrate wood easily, and scientists think their relatively small brains can absorb more impact than larger ones.

The ability to cling to tree trunks is made easier by two unique anatomical features. Their zygodactyl feet have two toes facing forward and two backward, giving them a better grip (most songbirds have three forward-facing toes and one back). And their pointed tail feathers are stiff and stronger than those in other birds, which allows them to use their tails for support. Watch a woodpecker as it moves up and down a tree — you will see it uses its tail almost like a third leg to brace itself.

A woodpecker’s tongue is another marvel of engineering. Most species have very long tongues for reaching into spaces for food. The tongue is contained within a hyoid bone and its surrounding muscle; it starts at the nostril, runs over the eyes and around the skull before reaching the mouth. (How weird is that?) Plus, the shapes of woodpeckers’ tongues can be quite different, depending on their diets. A Pileated woodpecker feeds mainly on insects under tree bark or within decaying wood, so its tongue is quite flexible and tipped with backward-facing barbs to hook its prey. A Northern Flicker feeds mainly on ants in the ground; its tongue is smooth and somewhat sticky for trapping its tiny prey. Sapsuckers consume a lot of sap and associated insects, so their tongue tips form a bristled brush to efficiently lap up liquid.

I hope this encourages you to get out this winter to see our woodpecker neighbors. Look for the oval holes created by Pileated pounding or the machine-gun like rows of holes of a sapsucker. Listen for the peeps and rattling calls or the persistent drumming on hollow limbs (or even your gutters) as they communicate with one another. And keep your eyes open for a flash of color in the trees or the undulating flight pattern of one of these master wood carvers of our forests.
Read on for more about the woodpeckers you might see in our area.   

Downy Woodpeckers are North America’s smallest woodpecker, coming in at a length of about 6 inches. A patch of red on the head indicates you are seeing a male.
Red-bellied Woodpeckers confuse some people since the prominent red you typically see is on their heads. But a closer look will reveal a reddish blush on the male’s belly that is more noticeable in the breeding season. Male Red-bellied woodpeckers have a red cap from their forehead to the base of their neck. Females have red only on the back of their necks. 
Red-cockaded Woodpeckers are a federally threatened species, so to see them you’ll need to drive a short distance to the Sandhills to their preferred habitat: old-growth pines with sparse understory, like the Weymouth Woods Sandhills Nature Preserve. This type of habitat was once abundant throughout the southeast, as Longleaf pine forests that were adapted to the frequent fires in the region. This is the only woodpecker that excavates its nesting and roosting cavities in living trees. The “cockade” in the name refers to the faint line of red feathers on the male’s head and comes from the popularity of red ribbons worn in hats back in the era when the bird was named.
Northern Flickers are more often seen feeding on the ground than in a tree. That’s because their favorite food items are ants. Years ago, a fellow state parks employee said his name for this species was “yellowhammer.” It turns out, for some odd reason, Northern Flickers have more folk names than any other American breeding bird, including hairy wicket, walk-up, wick-up and gawker bird. Many of these names come from their calls, which range from “wick-a, wick-a, wick-a” to a loud “kleer” or “peah.” They are distinctive among our woodpeckers with the overall brownish tints to their feathers with a white rump patch and flashes of yellow on the underwings and tail seen in flight. Males have a bold black feather mustache.
Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers have one of the best bird names I know. They nest in our mountains and migrate to our area in the winter months, where they feed on berries, insects, and the sap from trees. They get at that sweet liquid by drilling rows of small holes in the bark (called sapwells) and returning later to lap up the flowing sap. Insects and even other birds are attracted to these holes as a food source. 
Pileated Woodpeckers are our largest species, with a length of over 16 inches (making them the third largest woodpecker in the world!). They prefer forests with large trees, where they hunt for their favorite food, carpenter ants, by tearing apart logs and decaying tree trunks with their large bills. The bold red cap is distinctive on both males and females (the name comes from the Latin pileatus, which means “capped”), and males also have a red stripe on the cheek.
Hairy Woodpeckers and Downy woodpeckers are often found in similar habitats, but you can identify them based on body and bill size. The larger Hairy woodpeckers have longer bills (about the length of their head), while Downys have short bills, about half the length of their heads (see page 39). Hairys also lack the dark spots on their tail found on the white outer tail feathers of a Downy, but this is a much harder feature to see. Red on the neck indicates it is a male.
Red-headed Woodpeckers are perhaps the most omnivorous of our woodpeckers. Their diet includes all sorts of insects and small invertebrates, nuts (they are particularly fond of acorns), seeds, berries, and even small lizards and the eggs of other birds. They frequently stash food into crevices or under loose bark for later use.

This article originally appeared in the December 2024 issue of WALTER magazine.

Current Issue Home & Garden