What a special visit we had from a Pileated Woodpecker on our tree stump.   He pecked his way up the dead wood. One moment he was on the trunk and the next he jumped over to our bird feeder.   There he swung from the side and gobbled up sunflower seeds.

If you ever are honored to hear the call of this woodpecker you will think you just were sent back to prehistoric days.  It is so primeval and jungle like you will shake your head & ask what is that?

I often thing the Pileated looks like Woody Woodpecker the noisy cartoon character from the 40s.  Checking this out on-line I found there is a lot of debate about this. Who would think people would debate Woody Woodpeckers origins!

To my surprised, he is fashioned after an Acorn Woodpecker not a Pileated.  I found this post by Julie Zickefoose who tells the real story of Woody.  Here is what she said:

It turns out that Walter Lantz, the animator who created Woody Woodpecker, had personally given Garrett a copy of his biography, and in that book it says that Walter and his wife, Grace, while honeymooning in a California cabin, were amused by an acorn woodpecker who was poking nuts under the roof shingles. They liked the “little raucous scream” the bird emitted. Grace said to Walter, “Why don’t you make him into a character?”