<p>Yeah, waking up to the woodpecker doing his thing on our chimney vent is most definitely the harbinger of spring, eastcoastcrazy. Now I’m wondering if it is the same guy year after year?</p>
<p>(Though I think I’ll take our woodpecker rather than ever again having the mega-murder of crows descend on the trees behind our house again. The spectacle of several thousand crows cawing and wheeling around a couple of trees was loud enough (and creepy enough) to hear from inside with the doors and windows closed. Shades of The Birds.)</p>
<p>Thanks for all your suggestions…I will try them. Sounds like woodpeckers are challenging to get rid of!</p>
<p>My husband nearly fell on the floor laughing when the audobon society said that a very effective way to get rid of woodpecker is to "hang plastic snakes from the roof where the woodpecker pecks…seems that the birds are afriad of snakes and do not return to the premises. Haha…has anyone had luck with this approach?</p>
<p>I go out in my slippers and bathrobe to throw tennis balls at them on the side of our house occasionally. Very entertaining for the neighbors. :)</p>
<p>Our best luck has been putting out suet for them. You would think that just might attract them to your yard, but when we take the suet down, they hammer like crazy on the house. Minimal problem as long as we keep the suet hung out (we have it about 25 feet away from the house). We used to keep one of those long logs with suet plugs up, which brought the pileated in sometimes – great to watch. But the crow kept stealing the plugs, so I went back to the square kind. I have seen “double” square feeders that are stacked, and apparently the pileated will come to those as well. But I don’t have one of those.</p>