[mjohnson]

My wife saw her first pilated woodpecker up in northern MI some years back and her first statement was (and she's not some city-chick) "holy carp! there's a chicken whacking that tree up there!"

Very cool birds - we're stuck with littler woodpeckers here in NM but we do get huge flickers and stellar jays, not to mention monster chihuahuan ravens. Those ravens, I think, are probably the coolest birds I've experienced.