PILEATED WOODPECKER
17"
FIELD IDENTIFICATION: The Pileated Woodpecker is hard to find in Wise County, but a distinctive woodpecker, about the size of a crow. The male has a red crest, and black, white, and red patterned face (see drawing below). The body is black with a small amount of white at the base of the primary feathers (see Topography Page for more on this). The female is similar, but has less red on front of head. In flight, the underside of the wing is white, with black flight feathers, and the white in the primaries is visible from above. Flight is level and crowlike, different from the undulating flight of its other woodpecker relatives.
by Claire Curry
Juvenile Pileated Woodpecker.
Photo taken in Silver Springs, FL. in August 2002 by Mary Curry
Sketched in color pencil by Claire Curry (Summer 2000)