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The Pileated Woodpecker is a crow-sized woodpecker. They are black with white neck stripes, white wing linings, and a prominent bright red crest. Males have a red stripe running out from their beak that resembles a mustache. Females have a black mustache. It is the largest of the six species of woodpeckers in the Algonquin Highlands, although they are not plentiful. The Pileated Woodpecker makes a loud cuk-cuk-cuk-cuk, rising and then falling in pitch and volume.
The main diet of the Pileated Woodpecker is carpenter ants. They use their bills to carve out deep rectangular fist sized holes in fallen timber, dead roots, and stumps. They have incredibly long, sticky tongues, used to reach ant burrows inside the cavities.
Nest cavities are created in the same fashion, carved out with their bills. The Pileated Woodpecker will lay around 4 white eggs. Other cavity nesters such as Wood Ducks and Hooded Mergansers later reuse their old nest holes.
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PILEATED WOODPECKER
Dryocopus pileatus
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