Bed and breakfast and beaks: With improvements underway in his neighborhood in the foothills of Mount Spokane, birder/photographer Ron Dexter has made sure some of his most colorful neighbors aren’t disturbed. In posting these photos, Dexter said: “A pair of pileated woodpeckers has nested in a snag in the woods behind us at least three times now. The loggers were careful not to knock the snag down, so the woodpeckers may add more holes in the future. These are the largest woodpeckers in the United States, possibly the world. Their length is up to 18 inches and wingspan up to 30 inches. An ornithologist dissected one and counted approximately 2,500 carpenter ants in the stomach. So you can see, they help save the forests and maybe your house. They chop out large rectangular holes in trees to get to the ants and grubs, but their nest holes are shaped like a raindrop as you can see in the photo. They actually spend the majority of their feeding time on the ground or on fallen trees, snags or stumps that contain grubs, ants, etc. I see and hear them every year in our woods. They are in the area year round.”
