Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus) - 08Mar2016

The Pileated Woodpecker is the largest North American woodpecker since the Ivory-billed Woodpecker went extinct.  Normally I would not mention size, but when you see one, that is what strikes you right away.  Luckily this species is quite adaptable and can work with all kinds of wood whereas the Ivory-billed was a specialist peeling off bark from dead trees.  This kind of habitat was destroyed by heavy logging in the 1940s.  The last reported Ivory-billed was in 1987 of the Cuban subspecies.  Maybe some day they will use DNA to bring back the Lord God Bird (Ivory-billed) but until then the Pileated remains the undisputed King of Woodpeckers in North America.