Woodpeckers are beautiful and entertaining—unless they're turning your home's siding into dust. If the birds are looking for insects, the holes are small. If they're creating a nest cavity, the hole is much larger and causes even more damage. Woodpeckers cause millions of dollars in damage to North American homes each year.

Here in the U.S., Downy woodpeckers are the most common backyard woodpecker. An often acrobatic forager, this black-and-white woodpecker is at home on tiny branches or balancing on slender plant galls, sycamore seed balls, and suet feeders. Their rising-and-falling flight style is distinctive of many woodpeckers. In spring and summer, Downy Woodpeckers make lots of noise, both with their shrill whinnying call and by drumming on trees. Downy Woodpeckers are small versions of the classic woodpecker body plan. They have a straight, chisel-like bill, blocky head, wide shoulders, and straight-backed posture as they lean away from tree limbs and onto their tail feathers. The bill tends to look smaller for the bird’s size than in other woodpeckers. You’ll find Downy Woodpeckers in open woodlands, particularly among deciduous trees, and brushy or weedy edges. They’re also at home in orchards, city parks, backyards and vacant lots.

Another common and unmistakable bird, the Red-headed Woodpecker is striking at rest and in flight, showing its colors of red, black, and white. It is one of the most aggressive members of the family and one of the most omnivorous. This woodpecker is also the most adept at catching flying insects. The Red-headed woodpecker breeds in deciduous woodlands, especially beech or oak, river bottoms, open woods, groves of dead and dying trees, orchards, parks, open country with scattered trees, forest edges, and open wooded swamps with dead trees and stumps. It winters in mature stands of forest, especially those with oaks.

Pileated woodpeckers are the largest of the common woodpeckers found in most of North America. These crow-sized birds present a memorable sight with their zebra-striped heads and necks, long bills, and distinctive red crests. Pileated woodpeckers forage for their favorite meal, carpenter ants, by digging large rectangular holes in trees. These holes can be so large that they weaken smaller trees or even cause them to break in half. Other birds are often attracted to these large openings, eager to access any exposed insects.

Pileated woodpeckers do not discriminate between coniferous and deciduous trees—as long as they yield the ants and beetle larvae that make up much of the birds' diet. Woodpeckers sometimes access these morsels by peeling long strips of bark from the tree, but they also forage on the ground and supplement their diet with fruits and nuts. The birds typically choose large, older trees for nesting and usually inhabit a tree hole. In eastern North America, pileated woodpeckers declined as their forest habitats were systematically logged in the 19th and 20th centuries. In recent decades, many forests have regenerated, and woodpecker species have enjoyed corresponding growth.

Northern Flickers are large, brown woodpeckers with a gentle expression and handsome black-scalloped plumage. On walks, don’t be surprised if you scare one up from the ground. It’s not where you’d expect to find a woodpecker, but flickers eat mainly ants and beetles, digging for them with their unusual, slightly curved bill. When they fly you’ll see a flash of color in the wings – yellow if you’re in the East, red if you’re in the West – and a bright white flash on the rump. Northern Flickers spend lots of time on the ground, and when in trees they’re often perched upright on horizontal branches instead of leaning against their tails on a trunk. They fly in an up-and-down path using heavy flaps interspersed with glides, like many woodpeckers. Look for flickers in open habitats near trees, including woodlands, edges, yards, and parks. In the West you can find them in mountain forests all the way up to tree line.