You all know the legend of Bigfoot, the hairy, hulking humanoid purported to roam the big woods of the Pacific Northwest and other places, hunted by crackpots referring to themselves as “cryptozoologists”. We have a similar creature in the Cape and Islands bird world, a creature of big woods who is so unlikely out here that only irrefutable photo evidence, preferably with today’s newspaper in the frame, could convince the skeptics. Let’s call this creature “Bigbeak”. Every so often, I get a verbal or written report of Bigbeak here on the Cape, causing me to lean back in my chair and chortle derisively. Just two weeks ago one was casually reported by some visitors at Wellfleet Bay sanctuary on a day I was there, but with no photo or even attempt at a description. I scoffed appropriately, and the legend remained a legend.
But on Sunday the impossible happened. Local birder turned crypto-ornithologist Mary Keleher was photographing a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher in Ryder Conservation Area in South Sandwich, when she heard the unmistakable call of Bigbeak. She played the call back and it flew in, allowing a stunning and irrefutable photo. This was it, finally we had a good photo of Bigbeak, better known as a Pileated Woodpecker.
In order to pull off that stupid Bigfoot-themed intro, I conveniently ignored some actual verified records of Pileated Woodpeckers out here, including a bird seen and blurrily photographed by multiple good birders in Provincetown back in 2020, plus an old record from Yarmouth in 1982. Even Nantucket has an old record from the 50’s. But still, this is a bird that, despite being established as close as Plymouth County, has essentially never been clearly photographed or even adequately described around here. And it’s not an easy bird to hide – it’s a loud woodpecker the size of a crow, with a flaming red crest and flashy white wing patches. It’s like our Ivory-billed Woodpecker – if they were really out there, wouldn’t there be photos? Wouldn’t others see them too? Or hear them? I mean they sound like this and this, and also this.
Pileated Woodpeckers don’t migrate so much, and they need pretty mature and extensive woods to establish a population, woods with big-diameter trees to accommodate their big nests. Scrubby, stunted pine woods don’t cut it. But as trees get bigger in some of the more mature forests here on the Cape, like the Ryder Conservation and and Lowell-Holly Reservation where this bird is hanging out, the likelihood of colonization increases. And all the dead and downed trees after the three year spongy moth outbreak of several years ago are a big buffet for Pileateds, who forage mainly for carpenter ants on dead and downed wood. So if you see one hammering away on your house, it might be time to call the exterminator.
This bird found Sunday, an apparently single female, was still present as of yesterday, and was even photographed peeking out of a cavity it had excavated – Pileated Woodpeckers make distinctively large, vertically elongated holes for both nesting and foraging that are unlike those of any other woodpecker. These cavernous holes go on to house many other creatures, from nesting Barred Owls to bats and even denning female Fishers, giving these woodpeckers keystone species status.
But there’s a more important status to consider here for the Pileated Woodpecker – is it the inspiration for the equally loud and red-crested Woody Woodpecker, famed cartoon character? Many have claimed so, but apparently the original 1940 cartoon was inspired by Acorn Woodpeckers common in California, where all these animation studios were, though Woody looks more like some combination of a pileated and a Red-headed Woodpecker to me. I guess we’ll never know, which means Woody’s creator, Walter Lantz, has the last laugh.
