April 28 2019. Royal Botanical Gardens, Hamilton, ON. Friends doing a woodland transect a couple of days ago were surprised and thrilled to encounter two Pileated Woodpecker nest sites. At each, a female was excavating a nest hole. We always knew pileateds were present, they need large tracts of mature, intact forest and I would have thought we had just one pair, but it seems that’s not the case.
I know Pileated Woodpeckers to be unusually trustful at times, certainly not tame, that would be a wrong word choice, but you’ll sometimes find one so engrossed bashing away in search of food that it seems oblivious to your presence. Other times they behave coyly and, with a couple of hops, move around to the other side of the tree trunk to stay out of sight.
It was a pleasant enough spring day with some new migrants around. I had completed a transect and was especially satisfied to have found a pair of Blue-winged Teal, an Eastern Screech Owl and a Blue-headed Vireo. Then with the transect complete I approached one of the Pileated Woodpeckers’ construction sites; both the male and the female were present, taking turns to dig out the nest hole. From what I could see, I’d judge the hole to be nearly the size of a football. Here are a few photos, from today at the nest cavity and from earlier times and places.
