This album showcases a young male Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus) that started tearing apart my dying gray birch tree on April 9th at 7:30 am, 2007. What great entertainment for a photographer at home with the flu! The bird returned on April 10th, again at 7:30 and once more around 10 am to excavate more dormant, unsuspecting ants from their cells within the decaying wood. This bird is about 16.5" long and has a wingspan of almost 30". You can tell this bird is a male, by the red "whisker" stripe on the face, at the base of the beak. In some photos you will not see the red streak, when the bird has the right side of its face towards the camera. One would think the bird is female then, as it would appear to lack the red streak, but since the bird has a red crown and forehead as well as a red crest, it would still be identified as a male. Perhaps this bird was still obtaining mature breeding plumage and had not 'set' a red streak on the right side. Mature female 'Pileated's' do not have red on their foreheads anc crowns and also lack the red malar 'whisker'. The largest holes excavated measured 3" wide by 5" deep and 8-9" high. The woodpecker first tries to pry off loose bark with its chisel-like bill. If that doesn't work, he will then make a series of perforations down one side of a section of bark, then moves over a couple of inches and works down the other side, finally flipping the bark off with his beak. The chips fly literally when this fellow is after a breakfast of tasty ants. I was wondering how long it will take for this guy to carve my old tree down to a pile of chips and sawdust, but he had no answers for me at the time.