The Pileated Woodpecker is what one might call “charismatic”, which, fortunately, unlike when used for politicians, does not mean it is popular despite constantly lying to the public.

It does look handsome, though – after all, it is a woodpecker, and a large one at that. So, “charismatic” in the language of academic ornithologists probably means something like “relatively easy to get research grants for”.

And there must have been a lot of those in the past. Just a quick search brings up papers on the Pileated Woodpecker in many different areas of North America:

• Alberta Foothills
• Blue Mountains, Oregon
• Eastern Canada
• Florida
• Georgia
• Manitoba
• Missouri
• Montana
• New Brunswick
• Northeast Oregon
• Western Oregon
• Pacific Northwest
• Eastern Texas
• Vancouver Island
• Washington

The Pileated Woodpecker also seems to have a good marketing team, being described as an “Ecosystem Engineer” (source) …

… resulting in being the object of specific forest management guidelines (source) …

… at least partly due to their large cavities being important for other cavity nesters that are too lazy or incompetent to create their own (source).

One additional big plus of the species is that its occasional spotting in the right locations and the subsequent misidentification leave a bit of hope for the believers in the mythical Ivory-billed Woodpecker.

I’d write more about the species had I managed to take better photos than those shown here (Bath, Maine, June 2026).