TAP, TAP, Rat-a-tat

What is that racket? It sounds as though someone is banging on the walls with a club. Stepping outside, you spy a small bird banging its beak against the gutter of your house.

The bird is a 6-inch, black-and-white downy woodpecker. Then you hear similar noises coming from somewhere in the distance. The woodpeckers are communicating with one another by drumming in short bursts of loud, rapid pecking. Often they use trees for signal posts, but sometimes they'll choose the siding of a building or the rain gutter of a house. They'll peck on whatever makes a noise that suits them.

Woodpeckers drum to attract mates and to mark their territory. If other woodpeckers should venture inside their boundary, they wildly bob or shake their heads, ruffle their feathers and stretch their wings. In woodpecker language this means,"Go away! This is my territory!"

Drumming also helps woodpeckers find lunch and dinner. Using their specially adapted feet (two toes point forward and two back) and stiff tail feathers to brace themselves, they grip a tree. They then hammer against its bark. Hollow sounds tell them that grubs and insects have burrowed into the wood.Woodpeckers use their heavy, pointed bills to peck beneath the bark. Their long, bristle-tipped tongues extract the insects. Some woodpecker tongues can extend as far as 5 inches.

Woodpeckers have strong neck muscles that can drive their bills into tough wood. They have thick, spongy skulls that protect their brain by spreading and absorbing the shock of this drumming.Otherwise, their brains would be scrambled from the pounding.

Woodpeckers also use their strong beaks to dig nest cavities in trees where they can lay their eggs. They don't use twigs, leaves or grasses for nesting material. Instead,they simply leave a few wood chips in the bottom of a hole and lay their white eggs on top of them.

Of the 215 species of woodpeckers worldwide,seven species live in Missouri.The downy, hairy, pileated and red-bellied woodpeckers live here year-around.Northern flickers and red-headed woodpeckers sometimes migrate south in winter. Yellow-bellied sapsuckers only stay during the winter.

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1. Downy woodpeckers (top photo) are Missouri's smallest and most abundant woodpeckers. They often visit bird feeders. They especially like suet. Sometimes they eat seeds and fruit, but mainly they eat insects. Downy woodpeckers have a black and white pattern on the back of their head. Males have a red head patch; females don't.

2. Hairy woodpeckers look like downies but are slightly bigger, with a longer bill. Like downies, males also have a red patch on the back of their heads, but females do not.

3. You may also spot a brown woodpecker, a little bigger than a blue jay, hopping about the lawn searching for food. This is the northern flicker. It's found throughout the state. The northern flicker is our only brown-backed woodpecker, and it's the only woodpecker in North America that commonly feeds on the ground. Its main food is ants.

When you watch a northern flicker fly, you can easily see the bird's white rump and the yellow underside of its wings and tail. They seem to flicker. The male has a black mustache; the female doesn't.

Northern flickers have slightly curved bills that aren't strong enough to dig into hard trees. They generally dig into soft and rotting dead wood. They usually make new holes in the same tree year after year, so a single dead tree might have a lot of holes in it. Unlike other common woodpeckers, flickers feed their young by regurgitating food they've eaten.

4. You can probably guess that red-headed woodpeckers have completely red heads. The birds are about the same size as robins, and they have black-and-white wing patches, a white rump and, of course, that bright red head. Males and females look alike. They live in woodlands and open country. You'll often see them around farms and parks. They particularly seem to like orchards.

5. Red-bellied woodpeckers are also the size of robins. Some call them "zebrabacks" because of their black-andwhite striped back. Males have a red patch on the back of their neck that extends over the top of their head. Females have the red patch, but it doesn't go over the top of the head. Despite their name, the red on their belly is faint, more like a smudge. When the female bird is clinging to a tree the red is hard to see.

6. Yellow-bellied sapsuckers are shy, wary birds. Their coloring is mottled black and brown. Occasionally you may see one scaling up a tree. When it sees you, it will usually go around to the opposite side of the trunk. If you follow it around, it will keep circling away from you.

Sapsuckers are named for their habit of boring holes into the inner bark of a tree. This lets the sap run out. They suck up the oozing sap with their brush-like tongues. They return again and again, also eating insects that are drawn to the sap. Sapsuckers live in forests, but during migration you'll see them in parks, yards and gardens. They only visit Missouri during the winter.

7. Pileated woodpeckers are about 17 inches long (crow-size) and have a black back and large red-crest. Males have a red mustache. Their loud, ringing call sounds a little like maniacal laughter. The sound is unmistakable.

Seeing a pileated woodpecker, Missouri's largest woodpecker, is always a treat. Some people call them "logcocks." That's easier to say than pileated which, according to most dictionaries, can be pronounced as if the word starts with "pie" or with "pill." Either is OK.

Pileated woodpeckers may take a month to make a nest cavity in a tree. When complete, a nest hole will be about three and a half inches across, and may be 10 to 24 inches deep. Their nest holes are easy to identify because they are rectangular, instead of round.

Pileated woodpeckers also regurgitate food for their young. Even after the young have left the nest, the parents will continue to feed them for three months or more.

Woodpeckers are always special to see. If you want to bring more of them into your yard, try putting out suet, peanut butter, sunflower seeds, nuts, corn or fruit. If you can safely keep a dead or dying tree in your yard, do so because they are great places for woodpeckers to eat, roost and nest.

If you have woods on your property, let downed logs remain on the ground. They make good habitat for the insects that woodpeckers eat. You can also plant some nut or fruit trees. Who knows, you may lure all seven species of Missouri's woodpeckers to your property.