Keeping Common Birds Common

A male Pileated Woodpecker brings a large beetle larva to feed his youngsters begging voraciously from their nest.

These big woodpeckers, the largest surviving woodpeckers in North America, need large standing dead trees in which to excavate their nest cavities and extensive areas of mixed, mature deciduous/coniferous woodland in which to forage. These requirements are satisfied by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s 220-acre Sapsucker Woods Sanctuary, maintained in its natural state to provide bird habitat.