Came accross this mess on my path in the woods and looked up and saw a poplar almost cut in half. That bird must have a sharp bill to throw chips like that.
Wowzer! He probably got a one heck of a headache doing all that! I got a headache just looking at that tree!
Those pileated wood peckers are the size of crows and you can hear them banging on trees a long ways away.
That tree looks like an Aspen. The same thing happens with dead aspen here in central PA. I see it mainly in winter and early spring, and it seems that when the woodpeckers decide to start on a tree they tear the soft outer layer off the whole tree at once. I have never actually seen the woodpeckers while they are doing this, but I'll run past a tree one day and not notice anything, then the following day the tree will be stripped.
