Photo

Photo by Paul Sundberg

A male pileated woodpecker stops his work to check out what’s going on around him. You can tell the males from the females because the male has the red cheek patch. Paul noted that “This is the time of year when you hear them drumming on trees to mark their territory as they are getting ready to build new nesting cavities. They build a new nest cavity each year. The old ones are used by pine martens, owls, ducks and flying squirrels.”