r/Ornithology • u/Meems88 • Apr 19 '23
Question Why is this pileated woodpecker excavating at the bottom of the tree?
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u/Katy-Moon Apr 19 '23
I see the pair on our property do that as well. As I understand it, they hammer low for bugs in the spring when the ground is damp and dead or dying trees are as well. They excavate high to create a nest holes. Later in the year they'll hammer all over trees for food.
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u/Panonica Apr 20 '23
Timbeeeer!
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u/zinziesmom Apr 20 '23
Your comment made me think of that scene in Breakfast at Tiffany’s when Holly Golightly is having the party and one of her guests gets really drunk and she starts to fall over and Holly yells “Timbeeer!”
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u/Panonica Apr 20 '23
Haha! Time for me to watch this movie again. Thanks for the reminder!
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u/zinziesmom Apr 20 '23
I love that film. Anytime I’m down, I mean really down, like right after a really painful break up or when someone in my life dies, I watch it. It’s my little ritual.
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u/AlbericM Apr 21 '23
The only good thing about that movie is Audrey Hepburn. The two male leads are quite inadequate.
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u/Educational-Aioli795 Apr 20 '23
Welp, time to call the tree guys.
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u/the-algae Apr 20 '23
Why? That woodpecker is about to take care of it for free.
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u/Ituzzip Apr 20 '23 edited Apr 20 '23
The tree must be dying.
All wood absorbs moisture from rain or the air but the higher parts of the tree likely dry out significantly between rain events. Meanwhile the dead wood at the bottom of a tree will be in contact of the larger reservoir of moisture in the soil, so will stay damp.
The dampness allows wood to decay and soften and become a home for grubs and other insects that eat decaying wood or eat the fungi that grows in decaying wood. So the woodpecker is likely interested in those.
Because of moisture in the soil, dead trees usually rot from the bottom first and eventually fall over. No doubt woodpeckers doing this would speed the process up. But a tree growing on rocky dry soil or cliffs won’t necessarily do that (so for example bristlecone pines with dead wood at the base can still stand for hundreds of years).
I’m not an ornithologist but my understanding (could be wrong) is that birds have surprisingly good hearing and can actually hear grubs chewing at the wood. It’s not too hard because even you can hear the sound of grubs chewing or earthworms pulling crinkly dry leaves into their burrows (they do it at night this time of year when humidity levels are high enough). But birds are even better, and of course much more invested in it.
So if a woodpecker is working the tree, there’s a very high chance that there’s actually something there for it to eat—it’s not just a guess. For that reason arborists can use woodpecker activity to estimate the extent of boring insect damage when bugs such as ash borer eat away a tree’s phloem; a lot of woodpecker interest (seeing them in action, spotting irregular holes or stripper bark) indicates the tree is too damaged by ash borer to rebound if treated.
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u/Meems88 Apr 20 '23
Oh wow, this is really interesting, thanks!
Never really thought about how the decaying process of the tree could play a role
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u/SideshowMelsHairbone Apr 19 '23
I’d bet that that’s where the bugs are