I see Pilated Woodpeckers here in coastal North Carolina fairly often. I had a cabin on a lake in central Missouri for a dozen years and with a suet feeder hung outside the family room window we would get a Pilated three times a day like clockwork.
Their vision is so great that if you move they can see you through the glass and they are gone in an instant. If I stayed frozen I could observe them at a three foot distance for a minute and a half or more.
Though not on any regular basis, I see them occasionally on my property on the other side of the Allegheny mountains here in North Central WV.
I have several Pileated Woodpeckers that visit my feeders every day (central Indiana). The most I’ve seen flying around in my backyard at one time is 5 (3 males and 2 females). It’s pretty cool when they have babies to watch them train their youngins where the easy food sources are versus out in nature, which I have plenty of trees for them to go hunting insects in.
My home is set up high and then the woods are all in a ravine that edges a creek. I can sit and look out the windows of my family room and sunroom, and see the midsections to the tops of the trees. I’ve had friends that describe this as a view like a treehouse would have.
We have about six different kinds of woodpeckers here all year long, except the yellow bellied sapsucker doesn’t come to the feeders. He stays out in the woods. Still I occasionally get to see him, usually late Spring through the Fall. I guess he winters somewhere else.
** Their vision is so great that if you move they can see you through the glass and they are gone in an instant. If I stayed frozen I could observe them at a three foot distance for a minute and a half or more.**
They do have excellent vision. If they see me out at the feeders, they hang away until I’ve finished there. Then they approach when I’m gone, but I can still see them from my windows, which are about 20-25 feet away from the house.