Was in S Calif at a wilderness location, lots of huge old oaks, variety I don't know. There were LOTS of these birds on and around these trees, wondering what species they were.
Large, black with red heads,would fly from tree trunk to tree trunk, holding on vertically, never to any limb or horizontal surface. When they flew, you could kind of see through their wing panels, looked like a grey window through the wing. Very noisy and boisterous. No woodpecker type noise.

These look like good suspects.

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/..._Woodpecker/id

Acorn Woodpecker Identification, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology

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Release the Kraken

I think LVSteve has it-- either a woodpecker or a sapsucker.

If you have a smartphone, Cornell offers a free bird identification application that I've used a lot-- you just input when and where you saw the bird, how big, what colors, and it shows photos and descriptions of possible candidates. It's called Merlin Bird ID.

Given the "large" clue, google up pileated woodpecker.

That's the one! Thanks, guys!

There is a woodpecker that really likes one of my power poles. He has about gotten two holes made clean through the pole.

I think dude a tough steak is bad enough but that pole should have given you many headaches. No bug is worth that but I guess if the woodpecker is stubborn then have at it.

...including the pileated variety but I only hear woodpecker noise maybe a couple of times every five or so years. Seems like there would be more. With the woods being torn down the way that they are, more critters are living alongside of usl

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

I see pileated woodpeckers a couple of times a year here. Love their prehistoric look. Man can those suckers make the wood chips fly.

A lot of people around here (SW MI) have never seen one - my wife included. I’m lucky to have a healthy population of them in my deer hunting woods. I see one or more quite often when sitting in my tree stands. Not unusual to have them at eye level within 30 yards. Quite the spectacle.

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Pass it on.
Mark

Because of their size, country people in these parts call them "woods hens". Magnificent birds.

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Oh well, what the hell.

We had 3 pileated woodpeckers this spring. There is an old stump in the yard and when they tear into it, it looks like a woodchipper is going full blast.

I have one or more that shows up every year for several weeks and eats my ripening papaya. At first I wasn't sure if it was squirrels or the wood pecker. But I've caught both at it. I've determined that the wood pecker usually starts or opens the fruit and the squirrels generally finish it. I'll eliminate the squirrels but I can't do it to the woodpecker. I wouldn't have thought the wood peckers would eat papaya, but they do.

If you are in the woods and hear a jackhammer going off and see a bird that looks like "Woody Woodpecker, you have yourself a pileated woodpecker! We have 2 pair and they can make a mess of a big tree quickly. Chips at the base of a tree that would make a beaver green with envy. They usually do a rectangular hole.

Beautiful birds and a really loud haunting call.

I have a couple of nesting pairs of pileated here on the property. If you really want to see the chips fly, watch lumber that the boring bees have laid larve in. Apparently Woodys think they are a delicacy. 3-4" wood chips are not uncommon. So far I have lost a saw horse, two rafters in the corncrib leanto and a main beam in the tractor shed. Accidently found out that Cyphor will repel the bees. I use Cyphor to get rid of the fake ladybugs that want to invade my metal building by the thousands every fall and the instructions say it will work on boring insects also. So every year the exposed beams git a dose.
Larry

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When I was a kid living on a dairy farm we used to hear their distinctive call in the evening from the deep woods riverside. A rather haunting melody and one that used to run shivers up my back. Their flight is rather different as well as it consists of several wing strokes and than a coast, repeated over and over. almost as big as a crow but seldom seen. We do see hare along the Maine coast several times a year working on the rotted pine trees to the rear of my home. If you see one you have done well.

Haven't seen a pileated in the neighborhood but the red heads are common.
One hard head's rapid raps on a street light fixture sounds just like an old style telephone ringer.

Got the woody woodpecker variety here and also ones with black and white checkered wings. Get a kick out of them when they hammer on the metal silo dome.

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Retired trap shooter

They regularly hit the suet feeder in the backyard at our home. Had a nesthole in a backyard tree with a pile of chips at the base...if you would rap on the tree trunk with a hard object, the youngster's heads would pop out of the hole expecting a snack.

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Do or do not. There is no try.