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Birds · Animal sounds

Pileated woodpecker sounds

Dryocopus pileatus

Hear what the pileated woodpecker sounds like in 4 recordings (Dryocopus pileatus), including its drumming and call, made in United States.

Listen to the pileated woodpecker

Dryocopus pileatus - Pileated Woodpecker
0:05CC BY-SA 3.0by Jonathon JongsmaWikimedia Commons
0:05
Drumming · Carver Park Reserve, Carver, Minnesota, United States
0:07CC BY-SA 3.0by Jonathon JongsmaWikimedia Commons
0:07
Call · Tettegouche State Park, Lake, Minnesota, United States
0:05CC BY-SA 3.0by Jonathon JongsmaWikimedia Commons
0:05
Drumming · Forestville/Mystery Cave State Park, Fillmore County…
1:31CC BY-SA 4.0by Jonathon JongsmaWikimedia Commons
1:31

Tip: press play to see the sound's live frequency spectrum in blue over the waveform.

About the pileated woodpecker

The pileated woodpecker is a bird in the family Picidae (order Piciformes). Adults weigh around 11 g.

What does the pileated woodpecker sound like?

Bird vocalisations are usually divided into songs – longer, often complex phrases used to defend territory and attract mates, sung mostly by males in the breeding season – and calls: short, simple sounds for contact, alarm, begging or flight.

The recordings here are labelled as drumming and call. Listen for differences in rhythm, pitch and repetition – the spectrum display makes it easy to see whether a sound is a pure whistle (a thin line), a harsh call (a broad band) or a trill (rapid repeated marks).

From Wikipedia

The pileated woodpecker ( PY-lee-ay-tid, PIL-ee-; Dryocopus pileatus) is a large, crow-sized woodpecker with a prominent red crest, white neck stripe, and a mostly black body. This woodpecker is native to North America, where it is the largest confirmed extant woodpecker species and the third-largest extant species of woodpecker in the world, after the great slaty woodpecker and the black woodpecker. It inhabits deciduous forests in eastern North America, the Great Lakes, the boreal forests of Canada, and parts of the Pacific Coast. This woodpecker is primarily an insectivore, eating insects that live in trees; it is famous for making large, nearly rectangular carvings into trees, which are used to extract prey inside the tree or to make a nest. The species has a large range and an increasing population, causing it to be categorized as a species of "least concern" by the IUCN.

Related birds in the genus Dryocopus

More from the family Picidae

Frequently asked questions

What does a pileated woodpecker sound like?

You can hear 4 recordings of the pileated woodpecker on this page, including its drumming and call. Bird vocalisations are usually divided into songs – longer, often complex phrases used to defend territory and attract mates, sung mostly by males in the breeding season – and calls: short, simple sounds for contact, alarm, begging or flight.

What family does the pileated woodpecker belong to?

The pileated woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus) belongs to the family Picidae in the order Piciformes.

Sources & credits