RE: pileated woodpecker damage
 

Now thats funny!!!LOL

Hatchet Jack

RE: pileated woodpecker damage
 

That's a good one jpk:D

RE: pileated woodpecker damage
 

There is no doubt that they can dom alot of damage that is for sure. Sometimes they do that to get at bugs but other times? I am not so sure about it. There was one around here that used to go and peck at my next door nieghbors stove pipe. I do not think he was getting any bugs from it but he would still peck on it. Sometimes once a day and other days a couple of times a day. It was very annoying as he did that for most of a summer. He hasn't been around banging on that pipe for a couple of years now though. I still will see one every once in a while though. I just couldn't figure out why it would set there and bang on that stove pipe though..

RE: pileated woodpecker damage
 

All woodpeckers will use a method know as drumming, where they will hammer out a sequence of taps on a hollow tree, pipe, slate roof or some other object that can be heard over a great distance. That is how they attract their mate. They use the same system as turkeys gobbling or grouse drumming but yet different in that they use an object that helps increase the volume and thus distance of their drumming calls.

R.S. Bodenhorn

RE: pileated woodpecker damage
 

we are finding woodpeckers with heads missing.my neighbor says his neighbor shoots them with bird shot,they are always fighting,i dont believe that ,its not true.i think a OWL or HAWK is killing those woodpeckers.someone said owl will take head.i also find grouse with heads missing and usually inside is missing.

RE: pileated woodpecker damage
 

Yup owls do that. One year at camp my brother came home from the service to do some deer hunting and his service job was to teach survival training for the navy seals. He brought along a couple of rabbits to show me how they were taught to capture wild rabbits and clean and prepare them to eat in a survival mode. We decided to keep them in an enclosed area so we made a small fence and left them there so we could get them the next day and have a rabbit stew. The next morning we went out there and they were dead with the heads missing. He said it was an owl. we never knew for sure but there was a limit as to what could have gotten them.A coon or fox wouldn't have been able to get over the fence so it had to fly in and it happened at night so owl is probably the culprit.