Guide

Look closerBirds

Pileated woodpecker holes in dead trees

All year

Pileated woodpeckers chisel large, squared-off holes into dead trees, stumps and logs to reach carpenter ants, and the holes leave a scatter of big wood chips on the ground below. You can look for the holes even when the bird is nowhere around.

Why this time of year

Pileated woodpeckers hold their territory all year, so their feeding holes and chip piles can turn up on any walk in woods where they live.

How to notice it

  1. Walk a woodland trail and scan dead trees, stumps and fallen logs for a large, squared-off hole, often low on the trunk and taller than it is wide.
  2. Look at the ground below it for a scatter of big wood chips, much larger than sawdust.
  3. Check whether the hole follows the grain of the wood. Fine sawdust at the base of a trunk is a sign carpenter ants live inside.
  4. Look, do not poke: leave the stump and logs as they are so the next visitor can find them too.

Try this with kids: Can you find a hole with square corners in a dead tree? How many chips on the ground are bigger than your thumb?

Safety

  • Stay out from under dead branches and leaning dead trees; do not stand beneath standing dead trunks in wind.

Sources

  • audubon.orgAudubon field guide: carpenter ants may be up to 60% of the diet; excavating into rotten wood for carpenter ant nests leaves characteristic rectangular holes in dead trees; permanent resident.
  • nps.govNPS: large rectangular opening in a decaying tree with lots of fresh wood chips below it (nest cavity sentence); snags, logs and weakened live trees hold carpenter ants, a favorite food; territories year-round.
  • friresearch.caAlberta forest research info sheet: rectangular foraging holes with the long axis along the trunk at the base of the tree; scattered wood chips about the size of a Loonie; carpenter ants the main winter food; fine sawdust at the tree base indicates carpenter ants inside.
  • idfg.idaho.govIdaho Fish and Game: carpenter ants 60% of the diet; large rectangular holes in trunks with woodchips scattered on the ground; territory held all year.
  • massaudubon.orgMass Audubon Breeding Bird Atlas species page (Atlas 1 and Atlas 2 sections): 'Widespread and strongly increasing'; Atlas 2 shows considerable expansion in the Coastal Plains and Boston Basin, rare in the Bristol/Narragansett Lowlands and absent from Cape Cod and the Islands; Atlas 1 era most common in far western MA.
  • massaudubon.orgMass Audubon BBA1 (1974-79): less common and local in eastern MA, absent in southeastern coastal plain.

Checked against these sources on October 6, 2026.

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