And my favorite woodpecker is the large pileated woodpecker, a bird of mature forests. This crow sized bird is mostly black with a bright red crest.

When I lived on Long Island New York, it was extremely rare there. Yet it is a common species just across the Long Island Sound in New England and south to Florida.

Its favorite food is carpenter ants, but will also eat wood-boring beetle larvae, termites and other insects found in the tree canopy.

This bird’s population has been on the increase since the 1960’s with the decline of farmland and the increase in forests.