Woodpecker Information & Facts



It is my goal to educate the public about woodpeckers and other wildlife, and provide tips for safe, effective, and responsible wildlife removal.

HUMANE HINTS: In some cases, you don't need to remove woodpeckers at all - just leave them alone! If you do need to remove them, you can use netting, or various deterrents discussed below. NEVER attempt to poison woodpeckers. Read below for how-to hints.


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When you start to incur a problem with woodpeckers visiting your property regularly, it has to be something on your property that they’re attracted to. In order to repel them, you need to know what this attraction is. Maybe they’re able to obtain a nice supply of food such as insects while visiting or they have a favorite object to drum on. Maybe they’ve found the perfect spot on your property for nesting. Oftentimes, a male will drum on a house to mark out its territory. Whatever the problem is, it needs to be addressed.

Eliminate Food Sources
If insects are attracting the woodpeckers to your home, you may just need to treat the insect problem with insecticide around the outside of your home. While this may be just what you need to discourage the woodpeckers from making holes in the siding of your home to retrieve their lunch; however, to maintain an insect and woodpecker free life, you’ll have to reapply the insecticide as often as the directions suggest. It’s also important to choose insecticides that will not harm your home or the woodpecker which can be very difficult to find as well as expensive the more you have to buy it.

Chemical Repellants
While there are no chemical repellants registered to repel woodpeckers, there are a variety of sticky bird repellants such as Tanglefoot on the market that some people use to repel birds. Spray it on the sides of your house where the woodpeckers are a problem. Because of the tacky footing that these repellants provide, it has been said that the woodpeckers become discouraged and look for a new place to acquire their feast of insects. However, over time these repellants can stain the siding on your home during the warm weather.

Noise Repellants
Just like most other birds, woodpeckers hate persistent loud noises and often relocate when it becomes a nuisance for them. Some people choose to use tin pie pans or wind chimes that hang from the roof of their homes because as the wind blows, it’s supposed to create sounds that annoy and scare the woodpecker off. Yet, you must keep in mind that every day is not a windy day, which means that the pans won’t always create noise. Some people suggest that woodpeckers are also annoyed by the deadening sound of their favorite drumming spot. If this is true, you might consider investing in foam insulation. Because it comes in a can, you can easily spray it in the holes that the woodpeckers are attracted to or the hollow area behind the wood. This too can be expensive and may not stop the woodpecker from finding other areas on your house to devouring the tasty insects that wait inside.

Visual Repellants
Small or large holes in the side of your home are something that woodpeckers are very much attracted to. By placing metal or aluminum flashing over these holes, you can repel the woodpecker. You can also choose to buy mirrors to put over the holes that have a protruding lens that sticks outward. This way when the woodpecker flies up in an attempt to gather his dinner, he’ll be frightened by a larger image of himself. This type of repellant only works on the area it is placed in. it will only encourage the woodpeckers to find another location on your home with a wealth of insects. Besides, mirrors and aluminum is not a decorative design you’d expect to see on any home and will probably be very unattractive.

Netting
Because woodpeckers can cause so much damage to the wood on your eaves, it has been often recommended that netting be used to repel them. It’s plastic, lightweight, mesh and should be about ¾ inches to provide the best results. There should be at least 3 inches of space between the damaged home and the netting so that the woodpeckers don’t get slick and try to drum through the netting. This netting is barely noticeable and some experts believe that it could provide longer term results in repelling the woodpeckers. They may not leave your property entirely, but at least you can repel them against damaging your home. None of these repellants are guaranteed to work. If you want to get rid of that pesky woodpecker for good, consider contacting a professional for permanent results.

More in-detail how-to woodpecker removal articles:


Information about woodpecker trapping - analysis and methods for how to trap.
Information about how to kill a woodpecker - with poison or other methods.
Information about how to keep woodpeckers away - prevention techniques.
Information about how to catch a woodpecker - remove one stuck in the house.
Information about woodpecker repellent - analysis of types and effectiveness.

Woodpecker Information & Facts


The woodpeckers belong to Picidae family and they are found all over the world, mostly.

Appearance
Bar-breasted Piculet is the smallest of all the woodpeckers, since they are only 7g and 8 cm. Imperial Woodpecker is the largest and they average about 58cm and are more than 600g. Ivory-billed Woodpecker is next to it and weighs 500g and is about 50 cm. Since imperial and Ivory-billed woodpeckers are extinct in reality, the Great Slaty Woodpecker present in Southeast Asia which weighs around 450 g can be considered to be the largest. The females are larger in the piculets, and amongst woodpeckers it is typically the males that show sexual dimorphism are larger.

Biology
Nesoctitinae is the subsequent piculet subfamily which has its single species called the Antillean Piculet present in the Hispaniola, a Caribbean island. Wrynecks have two species arising in Africa, Asia and Europe.

Life cycle
The red-headed woodpecker lives in dead tree holes, fence posts, telephone poles and also under roofs. The female lays around 3-10 eggs.

Habitat
Woodpeckers are seen in cosmopolitan areas, and they are not present in Madagascar, Australasia, and Antarctica. They are also not present in the oceanic islands of the world, though most insular species are discovered in continental islands. True woodpeckers come from Picinae subfamily. The Picumninae piculets have species in Africa and Southeast Asia, while the Neotropics are present in South America.

Diet
The Woodpeckers diet generally includes insects and also grubs that are taken from dead and living trees, and arthropods, fruits from trees, saps and nuts from live trees. They assist in keeping the trees strong by helping them to stay away from mass infestations. It is also notable for its capability to attain wood-boring grubs with the help of their bills to hammer. Altogether, the family is depicted by their dietary suppleness, wherein most of the species are opportunistic and extremely omnivorous. Insects that are found inside the trunks of the trees are most common insect preys, be it rotten wood or crevices in tree barks. Termites, ants, beetles, caterpillars and spiders are the most common ones. They might be acquired by gleaning or by digging up wood. The prey is dug up with the help of their long pointed tongue. Their capability to dig facilitates the woodpeckers to get tree sap which is a significant food source for certain species. Sapsuckers are very famous for feeding this way, however this procedure is not limited to these species alone, since other species like White-headed woodpecker and Acorn woodpecker also follow this procedure.

Behavior
Woodpeckers are highly antisocial in nature and are hostile to even members of their own species and also to species that inhabit in groups. Species that live in groups have the tendency to be collective group breeders. Additionally, other species might also unite with mixed-species feeding flocks together with insectivorous birds, though they might tend to hang about on the edges of such groups. Joining such flocks permits the woodpeckers to lessen anti-predator caution and augment their rate of feeding. The woodpeckers are diurnal in nature and roost in the night time in the interior of holes. In the majority of species, the roost turns out to be the nest in the breeding period. This site is intended to provide woodpecker education and information, so that you can make an informed decision if you need to deal with a woodpecker problem. This site provides many woodpecker control articles and strategies, if you wish to attempt to solve the problem yourself. If you are unable to do so, which is likely with many cases of woodpecker removal, please go to the home page and click the USA map, where I have wildlife removal experts listed in over 500 cites and towns, who can properly help you with your nuisance woodpecker.

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