Dryocopus pileatus
Pileated Woodpecker
The crow-sized king that makes a suet cake famous.
The largest common US woodpecker — crow-sized, flame-crested, and the model for Woody Woodpecker. A Pileated at a backyard suet feeder is an event people photograph through the kitchen window, and it happens far more often than most feeder-watchers expect, wherever big timber stands near the yard.
Range
Year-round across the eastern US, the Great Lakes states, southern Canada, and the Pacific Northwest down through northern California; absent from the treeless plains and desert Southwest.
Seasonal habits
Resident and territorial all year. Pileateds visit suet most in winter and early spring; once a pair adds a cake to their circuit, they return with calendar reliability, often at the same hour daily.
How to identify one
- Unmistakable: crow-sized, mostly black, flaming red crest, bold white neck stripes
- Massive rectangular excavations in dead wood are its calling card
- Loud, ringing, jungle-movie call and slow, powerful drumming
At the suet feeder
A standard cage is too small for comfort — use a tail-prop suet feeder with a long backboard, mounted solidly (they're heavy). Double cakes disappear fast; near woods with standing dead trees, patience is usually rewarded within a season.
Feeding one this winter? Homemade cakes beat store-bought — one part fat, one part peanut butter, three parts dry.
Suet cake recipe calculatorWhere to find the Pileated Woodpecker
| State | Status | Start suet by |
|---|---|---|
| Alabama | Year-round resident | November 1 |
| Arkansas | Year-round resident | November 1 |
| California | Year-round resident | November 1 |
| Connecticut | Year-round resident | October 1 |
| Delaware | Year-round resident | October 15 |
| Florida | Year-round resident | December 1 in north Florida |
| Georgia | Year-round resident | November 1 |
| Idaho | Year-round resident | September 15 |
| Illinois | Year-round resident | October 1 |
| Indiana | Year-round resident | October 1 |
| Iowa | Year-round resident | October 1 |
| Kentucky | Year-round resident | October 15 |
| Louisiana | Year-round resident | November 15 |
| Maine | Year-round resident | September 15 |
| Maryland | Year-round resident | October 15 |
| Massachusetts | Year-round resident | October 1 |
| Michigan | Year-round resident | September 15 in the U.P., October 1 downstate |
| Minnesota | Year-round resident | September 15 |
| Mississippi | Year-round resident | November 1 |
| Missouri | Year-round resident | October 15 |
| Montana | Year-round resident | September 1 |
| New Hampshire | Year-round resident | September 15 |
| New Jersey | Year-round resident | October 15 |
| New York | Year-round resident | September 15 upstate, October 1 downstate |
| North Carolina | Year-round resident | November 1 |
| Ohio | Year-round resident | October 1 |
| Oklahoma | Year-round resident | November 1 |
| Oregon | Year-round resident | October 1 for the winter ramp-up |
| Pennsylvania | Year-round resident | October 1 |
| Rhode Island | Year-round resident | October 15 |
| South Carolina | Year-round resident | November 1 |
| Tennessee | Year-round resident | November 1 |
| Texas | Year-round resident | November 15 in the north and Hill Country |
| Vermont | Year-round resident | September 15 |
| Virginia | Year-round resident | October 15 |
| Washington | Year-round resident | October 1 for the winter ramp-up |
| West Virginia | Year-round resident | October 1 |
| Wisconsin | Year-round resident | September 15 |
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