Why Is a Woodpecker Pecking On My House?

As interesting as it is to watch birds around our homes, maybe at a feeder or a birdbath, occasionally they can create a problem or become a nuisance. Such can be the case with woodpeckers when they peck at the siding on your house. That constant drumming can wear a person’s nerves rather thin after a while, to say nothing of the damage that can be done to the siding. So why do woodpeckers feel compelled to peck on a house? There are four main reasons for all that drilling into the siding of your home.



Marking His Territory
A male woodpecker will drum on a house or tree to announce his presence to the others, and to hopefully attract a mate. When he has found a suitable mate and breeding commences, the drumming will cease.

Building A Nest
A woodpecker will drill a hole in house siding or a tree and enlarge it for nesting purposes. This hole will be round, opening into a larger “room.” This can obviously be destructive to a house. If this happens, you will want to make sure that there is not an active nest with eggs or babies before covering over the hole.

Searching For Food
A woodpecker eats insects. It will peck on the wood siding of a house looking for goodies to eat. When a woodpecker is pecking for his dinner, the holes will be irregularly shaped and small. Woodpeckers like crickets, grasshoppers, grubs, spiders, ants, bees, wasps, flies, and beetles. Because of this, they are good to have around as a natural pest control. One flicker, a type of woodpecker, can eat several thousand carpenter ants in a single day! However, when they are pecking them out of your house’s siding, it can be annoying. To stop this quest for food, make sure there are no insects burrowing in your wood siding.

Storing Food
Woodpeckers store food for winter much like squirrels and some other critters do. They like to drill a hole in house siding or a tree just the size of an acorn. Then. they place an acorn in each hole to save it for winter. This is a good practice as long as they choose trees for their pantries rather than your house. Not many people want their homes decorated with acorns. If you want to enjoy the woodpeckers around your yard, but don’t want them pecking on your house, hang suet from trees, or put out a bird feeder.

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