Leonard Weber
February 23, 2024
A little over 15 months ago (November 14, 2022), I reported my first sighting of a Pileated Woodpecker in Eliza Howell Park in Detroit. Since then, I have seen one in the park three other times, but just once in the last 12 months (on January 10, 2024).
Since the January sighting, I have spent hours searching for this magnificent bird. (Note: this photo was taken at another location, not the park.)
courtesy of Margaret Weber
The bird has eluded me, but the search has provided significant evidence of recent presence.
Pileated Woodpeckers eat many Carpenter Ants (estimated to be about 50% of their total diet), digging deeply into dead wood to find them. Carpenter Ants are social insects, with large numbers of them living together in colonies. The ants make tunnels in dead wood and Pileated Woodpeckers dig deep gouges in dead trees and logs to get to them, lapping up Carpenter Ants by the dozens (perhaps by the hundreds) with their long sticky tongues.
The bird in the photo above is excavating a dead standing tree. In the next photo, from a different location, one is working on a log.
Recently excavated large gouges in trees or in logs are signs that a Pileated Woodpecker was here not long ago. The next three photos were taken this February in Eliza Howell Park.
In addition to more opportunity for the exciting experience of watching Pileated Woodpeckers working for their dinner, the on-going presence of Pileated Woodpeckers in Eliza Howell Park would mean that the species has moved into Detroit, an expansion of its range.
The part of Michigan (southeast Michigan) that is not part of the Pileated’s regular range includes Detroit.
Lab Of Ornithology
At this point, we have both types of evidence of its (recent) presence: occasional visual sightings and several examples of ant-seeking excavations. What is not known yet is whether there is just one individual or a pair and whether it/they have moved in or are just visiting.
So the search continues!
my attention to this tree
I think it likely that these two holes in a dead Black Cherry tree were made by a Pileated Woodpecker. If so, perhaps it is making fun of the searchers!
Eliza Howell Nature Walk 
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