How to identify woodpeckers by the sounds they make

Lina Portman4 weeks ago

0 3 minutes read

This story was originally published in April 2017.

Today we are learning to speak woodpecker. At least five different species are roaming around somewhere near you right now. There are three other woodpecker species in Maine that I will mention and then completely ignore.

Most birds have a limited vocabulary, limited by their vocal abilities. But woodpeckers have several calls. They can also convey a message. Woodpeckers talk a lot, especially this time of year.

Let's start with the battery. Each woodpecker drums differently and most of the time you can tell them apart. My default drummer is a minor woodpecker. It has a nice short, even drum. It's like you can hear each shot clearly and maybe count them. You can't, but that's how you feel.

The hairy woodpecker has a similar but faster drumming. As with the downy, all the hits are evenly spaced, but in this case the hits come too quickly to be heard distinctly. It's a rapid-fire machine gun. We couldn't even pretend to count all the shots.

Once you get the hang of down and furry, the yellow-bellied sapsucker is easy. This bird is also a small woodpecker – just slightly smaller than a hairy woodpecker. Unlike his cousins, he is not a year-round resident. It migrates to Maine around the third week of April and immediately begins its unusual drumming rhythm. The drums start loudly then die out unevenly. It's like the drummer is running out of gas. Sapsuckers particularly like volume, and it's the little guy you most often hear drumming on metal.

Pileated woodpeckers are the big guys with red-crested heads. They have a deep, booming drum that gets faster and quieter towards the end. It is often compared to the sound made by a falling ping-pong ball. The drums speed up as they die down.

Northern Flickers are large woodpeckers with deep, ringing drums. They also speed up a bit, but not as much as pileated woodpeckers. The two can be difficult to distinguish. Fortunately, the flickers don't drum much, so they won't give you much opportunity to get confused. Don't worry about them. You may never hear a single drum.

You will definitely hear sparkles calling. What they lack in drumming, they make up for in shouting. The flickers have a strong call note that sounds like a downward “CHEEoww”. They also vocalize something that could be called a song if it contained an ounce of music. This is a repeated “flick-flick-flick,” from which the bird gets its name. Finally, the twinkles have a Woody Woodpecker laugh that usually doesn't drop much at the end.

The pileated woodpecker is actually the real-life model for the cartoon Woody Woodpecker. It has the same laugh as the twinkle, but it is more irregular and tends to tone down a lot at the end. The two laughs are similar enough that I still confuse them from time to time.

Yellow-bellied woodpeckers have a range of vocalizations. Around the nest or their favorite feeding tree, you will often hear an irregular “wika-wika-wika” or a high-pitched plaintive “MEER”. Last year a pair nested above my driveway and the same pair drilled sap holes into a birch tree behind the house. Until they left at the end of September, all I heard was “wika-wika-wika”. Sapsuckers also call a two-toned “KEE-yah” that looks a bit like a red-shouldered hawk. Of course, this is a trick that only works if you know what a red-shouldered hawk looks like.

Hairy woodpeckers are very noisy. They stay in contact with nearby woodpeckers by frequently emitting a “PEEK” call note. When they interact with each other, they will make an almost indescribable “tweecha-tweecha-tweecha-wick-wick-wick”. As they fly from perch to perch, they call with a raspy vocalization that resembles that of a belted kingfisher. Of course, this is a trick that only works if you know what an American kingfisher looks like. Hairy woodpeckers also make a horse-like whinnying sound.

Downy Woodpeckers have a similar whinnying sound, but it diminishes at the end. It's very distinctive and a dead giveaway. Think of the downward whinny as “Downy Down” and you'll never forget it. Downy Woodpeckers also emit a calling note that resembles the Hairy Woodpecker's PEEK note, but is a duller “pik.” They can be difficult to distinguish, but it gets easier with practice.

Over the past two decades, red-bellied woodpeckers have become established in the state. In northern Maine we have always had Black-backed Woodpeckers and American Three-toed Woodpeckers. They all seem different. But that's a story for another day.

Bob Duchesne is vice president of the Penobscot Valley Chapter of Maine Audubon. He developed the Maine Birding Trail, with information on mainebirdingtrail.com. He can be reached at [email protected].