Pileated Woodpeckers excavating

Our warm spring weather has deteriorated into windy, cold, rain-and-snow-mixed squalls. Such weather brings on cabin fever rather quickly. So in an effort to avoid total psychosis, I bundled up and headed for Tualatin Hills Nature Park in Beaverton. Aside from the cheery singing from both Bewick’s and Winter Wrens, the highlight of the trip was a pair of Pileated Woodpeckers excavating a nest cavity.

I first saw the male, pecking away inside the cavity and occasionally hauling out a clump of chips in his bill

The female soon joined the male, and did a little excavating after he flew off.

Here is the cavity. Notice how the lower edge is beveled, just like the cavities of Black-backed and American Three-toed Woodpeckers. The oval shape, and the lack of other excavation nearby, suggests this is a nesting cavity. Cavities produced by feeding Pileateds are usually rectangular.