Why is a Woodpecker pecking on my house?

Many critics are the same as woodpeckers, who instead of enjoying the shadow and the sweet fruit of the tree, rush ceaselessly to the trunks of the trees to peck holes in them in the hope to search for some little worms. ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

There are about 120 species of woodpeckers all around the world, all of them possess different features, color and size but one common thing about sthem all is their “pecking”. As their name suggests woodpeckers dig holes in the wooden objects for several different reasons. Many people have misconceptions about them that they are wood eaters, but this not true at all, they never eat wood rather they eat insects, fruits and plants. Apart from two main reasons for woodpeckers' pecking that are; searching for their food and the pleasure of sound that they produce for communication purposes, some additional reasons are considered while talking about the woodpeckers' pecking.



Reasons for woodpeckers’ pecking:

Searching for food:

The main reason for woodpeckers' pecking is to search for the food for their living. They dig up holes in trees or houses to excavate the insects or other pests from them that are utilized by them as their feedings.

Roosting:

Roosting is the other basic reason for which the woodpeckers pecks on houses. They dig up holes in the houses for making and setting up their nests. The nests made by woodpecker consist of large shallow holes. They make the big holes as their homes at the places that are steeper and safe according to them. Generally, they make their roosting in the beginning of spring season that is the beginning of their breeding season so to get rid of them from pecking your house is best at the very start of spring season because after that they will gather their family over there and it will be very difficult to get rid of them all.

Food storage:

Although, searching for food is the main reason for woodpeckers' pecking but storing the searched food for later use is another. After finding their food from trees or somewhere else, woodpeckers may make holes in your house to keep their food stored over there. The holes they make for storing their food will be larger than those made while searching for the food.

Producing sound:

Woodpeckers not only produce sound for their conversation with their fellows. Rather, at times they to pecking on houses for producing sound from their pecking and giving a scream to assure their existence, they do this to aware everyone around of the fact that “we the woodpeckers are present over here.” They produce this sound by drumming in the spring season while their breeding, they don’t peck for producing sound while searching for food

Woodpeckers peck for several reasons but none of those reasons sounds to be beneficial for us as humans, but as it is their nature, they are doing it from the very beginning and keep doing it till the end, we can’t stop them, all we can do is get rid of them.


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