Hylatomus pileatus

A Pileated woodpecker's wonderful strength on display. 
Its holes in an oak on the Pine Meadow trail, Harriman State Park.

(Phlaeotomus pileatus and subspp)* 

The pileated woodpecker, logcock, woodcock or cock of the woods as it is variously called, is the largest member of the family now living in the United States except the ivory billed woodpecker, which is very rare. The logcock is essentially a forest bird and is rarely found except in rather extensive tracts of timber. It is usually shy and retiring difficult to approach and better known by its work than by sight. Its large size, loud voice and habit of hammering upon dead limbs combine to make it a conspicuous inhabitant of the forest. Its strength is wonderful and it is hard to believe that a bird can so completely destroy a stump or log Strips of decayed wood 2 feet long 4 inches wide and an inch thick are often torn from a stump and thrown several yards away. Woodpeckers signal each other by hammering upon a dead and hollow limb or trunk of a tree or upon the metallic cornice of a building. The pileated is an adept at such telegraphing and its tattoo on a particularly resonant piece of timber can be heard for more than a mile.

- F.E.L. Beal, Food of the Woodpeckers of the United States, 
U.S. Department of Agriculture Biological Survey, 1911

* I have yet to ascertain where the author's name for the genus, phlaetomus (sic) comes from. It seems this was the scientific name given to the Pileated woodpecker in the scientific literature of the first quarter of the 20th century. I have seen in at least one text the name of this genus attributed to Jean Louis Cabanis, a German ornithologist of the 19th century.

Plate 111 from Audobon's Birds of America