Attracting Woodpeckers to Your Yard

Woodpeckers are primarily cavity nesters. Rather than move into a ready-made bird house, they prefer to excavate their own cavities by drumming their chisel-like beaks into soft wood trees. The actual excavating is an important part of their instinctual life. There are some types of woodpeckers which may never accept a birdhouse, and often a woodpecker will excavate a new hole in the same tree as the previous year, rather than reuse an old hole.

When a woodpecker does use a birdhouse, he seems compelled to enlarge the birdhouse entrance before settling in. Sometimes this is done to make the hole entrance more comfortable; at other times it appears that the instinctual behavior to excavate needs to play itself out.

Some woodchips that result from excavation fall to the inside of a tree cavity or house and serve as a lining for the nest. Unlike other species, woodpeckers do not bring in any nesting material of their own. When putting out a house for woodpeckers, your adding 1-2 inches of woodchips to the floor of the house will help keep the eggs warm and snug.

We recommend that you locate the house in an area that includes dead trees and stumps, where woodpeckers find insects, their main food source.

 (source: duncraft.com)