Attract Woodpeckers to Your Yard: Trees and Peanuts

Over the past three years we’ve managed to attract a nice variety of woodpeckers to our city neighborhood yard. In fact, of the seven species commonly found in northern Illinois, we’ve had six (Pileated Woodpeckers . . . no).

In order of most abundant to least:

1. Downy Woodpecker
2. Red-bellied Woodpecker
3. Northern Flicker
4. Yellow-bellied Sapsucker
5. Hairy Woodpecker
6. Red-headed Woodpecker

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker

Our yard has quite a bit of room (for being in a large city) and has a wide diversity of trees: maples, birch, American Sycamore, oaks, a massive American Elm, and the remains of a once mighty willow. Each of these is a magnet to woodpeckers looking for natural food and sometimes a place to nest.

Downy Woodpecker

If your yard lacks tree diversity the next best way to attract woodpeckers is with feeders, especially peanuts (and suet). We’ve used several types of peanut feeders including a ringed one that was difficult to fill and would periodically lose nuts (photo below). We’ve even just placed them in trees or on the ground but of course that’s a sure way to attract squirrels.

Instead, we recommend a nice, sturdy feeder that holds a lot of peanuts. One of our favorites is the one we sell in our OpenSky store. It has a large capacity (3.5 lbs) and is stylish. More importantly, the peanuts stay put unless a bird (or other animal) works them out.

Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers and Northern Flickers are a bit more picky and don’t seem to go to peanut feeders. We only get sapsuckers in migration and the flickers seem to avoid our feeders and stick to the trees.

Get free shipping and a $25.00 off coupon when you order now until the end of November from OpenSky and don’t forget to check out the other stores for great products!!