Woodpecker Animal Symbolism

If you were born between June 22 – July 21, the woodpecker is your Native American Birth Animal and the goose is your Polarity Animal. If you were born between December 22 – January 19, the woodpecker is your polarity animal and the goose is your birth animal. Learn more about Native American Spirit Animals and Polarity Animals here.

My husband loves to save and use everything so when he purchased our property and said we needed to save old dead trees, my first thought was, “Oh, here we go again… gotta save everything.” But then he explained to me that woodpeckers like to peck for bugs in old dead trees. He learned this from his father who has a dozen dead standing trees with woodpecker holes in them in Wisconsin. I accepted his explanation but didn’t think much about it. At the time, woodpeckers meant nothing to me.

Then, Dave gave me a Canon Rebel T7 with a telephoto lens for Christmas, and I started birdwatching. Oh, my, I have fallen in love with woodpeckers! They are so beautiful and fun to look at – especially the bright colors of the red-bellied woodpecker! The photo above is one I took in January of this year (2022) in a dead hickory tree that borders our field. The photo to the right is a Gila Woodpecker from my sister-in-law’s yard in Phoenix, Arizona. Her property butts up against the South Mountain Regional Park and Preserve.

Fun Facts About WoodPeckers

First, let’s look at some fun facts about woodpeckers:

• Woodpeckers have tongues that are twice as long as their beaks. They listen for bugs, poke a hole in the wood, and use their long sticky tongues to eat the bugs.
• Their noses have furry feathers over them to keep from breathing in dust or wood splinters.
• Woodpeckers have back toes and strong tail feathers that hold them in place and balance them in trees while they peck for food. When they go down a tree, they usually remain upright and descend backwards down the tree. Other birds that climb trees tend to walk down headfirst. We have seen the Gila woodpecker walk face-first down a tree so it’s not a hard and fast rule.
• Woodpeckers peck as part of their communication. They drum on wood to attract mates, mark their territory, or just play. They generally only peck in the day and rest at night.
• Woodpeckers don’t eat wood. They just use their beaks to drill holes. They eat bugs and also eat nuts and berries. Some like to cache acorns in trees and store them for the winter. While we’ve never seen any red-bellied woodpeckers at our bird feeders, I’ve seen several of the Gila Woodpeckers at my sister-in-law’s bird feeders. We can sit at her dining area window and watch them eat birdseed from the feeder. Some people even report seeing woodpeckers at their hummingbird feeders.
• Woodpeckers carve perfectly formed holes for their nests in trees. Depending on the species, the hole could be a perfect circle or perfect oval. They drill a new nest each year, and other birds often take over their old nest in subsequent years. Interestingly, the Gila Woodpecker will even live in cacti! They have been known to build their nests in saguaros and eat the fruit the cactus bares.

There are over 200 species of woodpeckers in the world. If you’d like to learn more about various woodpeckers, this is a good article at BirdFeederHub.com

Woodpecker Animal Symbolism

Native Americans believed that woodpeckers meant traveling into the astral plane. They were considered messengers, repeatedly conveying truth, delivering their prophetic messages with perseverance and tenacity. They represented communication.

Turkish playwright, Mehmet Murat ildan, wrote:

“Repeat the truth with the speed of a woodpecker’s beak making holes in tree trunks!”

Mehmet Murat ildan

Because woodpeckers are so good at finding food in dead tree trunks, they are also known for their resourcefulness. They teach us to keep looking, keep finding the good that may be hidden right in front of us. It’s interesting that my incredibly resourceful husband who wastes nothing would be mindful of the woodpeckers who are so much like him.

Woodpeckers are also known for their determination, tenacity, active listening, wisdom, durability, ability to prevail, and strength. They see opportunities and seize them.

Thoughts to Consider

• Are you determined to find the opportunities around you? Will you peck around and explore until you find the resources in your own backyard?
• Are you hearing the truth, and doing the inner work to find the truth in yourself and in your own soul?
• Are you as determined to hear the Divine messages being broadcast to you through nature and scripture as you are in listening to mainstream media or modern entertainment?