Plumages.—I have seen no small nestlings of this species, but they are probably hatched naked and blind, like all other woodpeckers; the juvenal plumage is evidently acquired before the young bird leaves the nest.
The young male, in juvenal plumage, is much like the adult male in general appearance, but the body plumage is softer, less firm, and rather lighter and more sooty in color; the tips of the primaries have dull-white narrow margins, which soon wear away; the red of the head is duller, paler, and more restricted; on the fore half of the crown and the malar region, the feathers are basally grayish brown, the red showing only on the tips of most of the feathers, producing a mixed color effect. The young female is similar to the young male but with even less red in the head; the forehead and most of the crown are grayish brown, which invades the red posterior portion of the crown; and there is no red in the malar region. Audubon (1842) says that the bill of the young bird is considerably longer than that of the adult.
The juvenal plumage is apparently worn for only a short time, during the summer and early fall; I have not been able to detect it beyond August; this is followed by a prolonged molt into a first winter plumage, which is scarcely distinguishable from that of the adult. Adults have a complete molt between June and September.
Food.—The food of the southern pileated woodpecker is not essentially different from that of the other races of the species, with due allowance for the difference in environment. Prof. F. E. L. Beal (1895) says: “Six stomachs, collected by Dr. B. H. Warren on the St. Johns River in Florida, contained numerous palmetto ants (Camponotus escuriens), and remains of other ants, several larvae of a Prionid beetle (Orthosoma brunnea), numerous builder ants (Crematogaster lineolata), one larva of Xylotrechus, and one pupa of the white ant (Termes).”
George Finlay Simmons (1925) says that in Texas it “feeds on ants, particularly about decayed stumps; the eggs, larvae, and adults of wood-boring insects, particularly beetles; and on berries, acorns, nuts, and wild grapes. When digging for insects beneath the bark or in the wood of dead limbs or trunks of trees, it pounds steadily away, head swinging back in an impossible arc and driving straight down with the force of a blacksmith’s sledge, chips flying every stroke or two; by employing a wrenching stroke with its chisel-bill, it knocks three-inch, four-inch, or even six-inch chips from the tree and causes them to fly for some distance.”
Arthur H. Howell (1924) says that in Alabama its food “consists mainly of ants, beetles, and wild fruits and berries, including sour gum, tupelo gum, dogwood, persimmon, frost grape, holly, poison ivy, sumac, and hackberry.”
Behavior.—The pileated woodpecker is ordinarily a wild, shy bird of the wilderness forests, though in some places it is said to be quite unsuspicious, where perhaps it has not yet learned to fear man, or where familiarity has taught it to trust him. Its flight is rather slow, but vigorous and usually direct, after the manner of a crow; at times, however, in short swings, it adopts the bounding flight, so common to many woodpeckers. It is an adept at keeping out of sight behind a tree trunk and will lead a hunter a long chase by flying from tree to tree well in advance of him. When shot dead, it may cling for some time to the branch or trunk, until its muscles relax and allow it to fall. If wounded, it keeps up a constant chatter while falling and will not become quiet while life remains; a wounded bird should be handled carefully, for it can inflict a painful wound with its powerful beak.
Audubon (1842) relates the following story, as told to him by the Rev. John Bachman: “A pair of pileated woodpeckers had a nest in an old elm tree, in a swamp, which they occupied that year; the next spring early, two blue-birds took possession of it, and there had young. Before these were half grown, the woodpeckers returned to the place, and, despite of the cries and reiterated attacks of the blue-birds, the others took the young, not very gently, as you may imagine, and carried them away to some distance. Next the nest itself was disposed of, the hole cleaned and enlarged, and there they raised a brood. The nest, it is true, was originally their own.”
Robert P. Allen has sent me the following note: “When in one of the Carolina river swamps with Herbert L. Stoddard, early in December 1936, we were interested in the actions of pileated woodpeckers that we called to us by tapping on the side of our cypress dug-out in imitation of the birds. We paddled our canoe close against the buttress of a large cypress tree, so that we were partially concealed by the trunk itself and by a dense growth of intertwining branches overhead. As many as four pileateds at one time responded to our efforts, and all these appeared to be males. As they swooped low, to get a look at this stranger in their midst, each bird made what we took to be an intimidating noise with its wings.
“From the immediate and pugnacious interest that these male (?) pileateds showed in our presence, it would seem as if they had previously cataloged the pileated population of that area and had, therefore, rushed over to investigate the presence of a bird that could not be accounted for, except as a stranger and a trespasser. Their efforts at intimidation were evidently designed to drive us out of the region.”