| | TRR photo by Sandy Long
These excavations indicate the presence of a pileated woodpecker. This large bird listens for the sounds of its favorite food, carpenter ants, then drills into live or dead trees to feed. Such holes can grow to nearly a foot in length and often appear in clusters.
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Trees meet many needs
Though trees provide humans with countless resources ranging from shelter to shade to sustenance to sensory stimulation, trees also provide many less obvious resources for other living creatures.
Mammals and birds nest or simply rest in their branches. In addition to the many nest builders, wood ducks, hooded mergansers, bluebirds, nuthatches, tree swallows and some owls take advantage of tree cavities for nesting sites.
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