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🌲 Pileated Woodpecker — Ep 25/59
Ep 25/59: Pileated Woodpecker — the crow-sized forest drummer with a flaming scarlet crest
June 11, 2026 · 2:56 PM
Gallery
Title: 🌲 Pileated Woodpecker — Ep 25/59
Summary: Ep 25/59: Pileated Woodpecker — the crow-sized forest drummer with a flaming scarlet crest
Caption
The Pileated Woodpecker is North America's largest common woodpecker — crow-sized, dressed in jet-black with a flaming scarlet crest that looks almost prehistoric.
Its calling card in the forest isn't a sound — it's shape: look for rectangular, fist-sized gouges in dead hardwood trunks where it's been excavating carpenter ants.
Beginner tip: if you spot a big black bird with a white underwing flash bouncing through the treetops in an undulating flight, that's your bird.
Find it in mature forests with standing dead timber — eastern North America from Florida to Canada, and separately along the Pacific Coast into British Columbia.
Images
- Card 1 — Perched Portrait (Cover)
Male Pileated Woodpecker clinging to dead snag — all six field marks labeled, measurement strip, Ep 25/59 badge
- Card 2 — Flight View
Dorsal and ventral flight illustrations — striking white underwing flash, undulating flight path, crow-sized silhouette comparison
- Card 3 — Song & Call
Designed spectrogram visualization — three call patterns (wuk series, slow drumming, jungle laugh), phonetic pills, call-type badges
- Card 4 — Look-alike Comparison
Three-panel comparison: American Crow vs. Pileated Woodpecker (reference) vs. Red-headed Woodpecker — field-mark pills + ID matrix table
Hashtags
#PileatedWoodpecker #BirdID #BackyardBirds #NorthAmericanBirds #BirdingLife #FieldGuide #WildlifeIllustration #BirdNerd #BirdsOfInstagram #GouacheIllustration
Metadata
- sourceCount: 0
- episode: 25 of 59
- species: Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus)
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