To attract woodpeckers to your yard maintain existing large trees—especially deciduous one that loose their leaves in the fall--and plant a variety of shrubs. Allow dead and dying trees, decaying stumps and rotting, fallen trees to remain on your property as long as they are not a hazard.
In addition to the animal protein from insects woodpeckers eat small fruits and nuts from a wide range of local trees and shrubs.
Hairy and downy woodpeckers: Acorns and hazelnuts, poison ivy, pokeweed, corn and Virginia creeper.
Northern flickers: Poison ivy, Virginia creeper, blackberry, greenbriar, grape, sumac, dogwood, mountain ash, beech, magnolias corn and blueberries.
Lewis’ woodpecker: Ponderosa pine.
Pileated woodpecker: Flowering dogwood, mountain dogwood.
Red-bellied woodpecker: American elderberry, northern bayberry, possum haw.
Red-headed woodpecker: Black cherry, laurel oak, white oak, American plum, American elderberry, western thimbleberry.
Yellow-bellied sapsucker: Sugar hackberry.
