I've got a couple of bird feeders in my backyard. One of them is a plastic cylinder which has four feeding ports at its base. A mesh wire cage surrounds the cylinder. The seed in the cylinder can be seen, but not, of course, accessed through the walls of the cylinder.

I saw a woodpecker on the feeder, the first time I can't recall seeing one on a feeder like this. The woodpecker sat on the perch, saw the seed inside the cylinder, and rather than getting seed from the base of the feeder, like every other bird who has landed on it has been able to figure out, this silly bird was trying to get the seed through the sides of the cylinder. peck, peck, peck

Are woodpeckers dense?

I've seen woodpeckers peck on all manner of things that weren't wood, including the metal housing of a window AC unit. This brought forth the righteous anger of my father, which was definitely not a smart thing to do.

Yeah, I've had them pecking on the siding of my house, but that's at least understandable. It really did look to me like the bird was trying to get to the seed.

Apparently, certain game cameras emit a noise that wood peckers hear as insects inside a tree. My uncle has lost several to a wood pecker that keeps pecking the motion sensor and lens out of them.

There is a metal pole off the back of his barn and he was one that will absolutely go to town on that thing. It is so loud.

They all have CTE from getting their brain rattled all the time. I’ve had them hammer away at the bricks on our house.

Was walking my dog once and all of a sudden, I heard an incredibly loud sound. It took me a second, but realized a woodpecker was hammering away on a metal gutter.

It actually scared/startled me for a moment.

I bet bendable will know. Birds have tiny brains, hence the term "bird brain". I would not know why the woodpecker could not solve that simple problem.

They are just programmed to peck holes to get food. It probably doesn’t consider any other possibility. So yeah, they are stupid.

1s1k, thanks for the laugh. . I was thinking something along the same lines.

We have a woodpecker that just loves to bang his head on our gutters to create what sounds like an MG42 just burning through rounds. The chucklehead always does it early in the morning, typically around sunrise.

Even after it’s happened a few times it’s always a shock to wake up to hearing BRRRRRRRRTTTT BRRRRRRRRTTTT coming loudly from the corner of the house nearest my bedroom.

I have a Downy Woodpecker who wakes me regularly at the crack of dawn hammering on the siding outside my bedroom window. I have the same type of feeder Para has and Mr. Downy pecks at it, too. Even while other birds are feeding from the other ports.

They will almost always go to the suet blocks before the hopper style feeders.

They are
Best used in suet blocks cages.
75 cents is a very good price these days.
.88 cents is ok
.99 cents is my limit.

Blocks are almost always cheaper by the dozen.
Farm store is our choice.
Rare occasions Menards.

In our area of the world, woodpeckers and flickers will peck (drumming) on various items as a mating call ... maybe this is what is happening and not interested in the seeds.

https://abcbirds.org/blog20/woodpecker-sounds/

I'm guessing mating call as well. It's actually rather brilliant as he found a location that would attract either a horny or hungry mate.

I have large mesh "cages" that I put a large woodpecker block in. The woodpecker block is composed of various seeds and nuts bound together by some edible "glue". Woodpeckers either feed on that or the suet feeders as bendable has mentioned. Woodpeckers that have fed in the past year: red-bellied, downy, hairy, pileated, and common flicker. The flicker was a surprise as they usually eat ants off the ground.

Hummingbirds make Woodpeckers look like brain surgeons.

Once while walking on a blacktop walking path in a local park heard the loud racket of something pounding/banging on something metal...Found source of banging to he a red headed woodpecker sitting on a light pole sidearm support and just trying to drill a hole into the metal arm. ................................. drill sgt.

It is thought Woodpeckers pound on metal to signal other Woodpeckers. There were at least 2 cases on Sanibel that Pileated Woodpeckers punched through the side of a house, destroyed the kitchen cabinets and expired inside the house. I worked the remodel on one of them.

They would peck the transformer boxes on powerpoles at our 1st house. We put new windows in that house before selling. Two of them crashed head-on into the new windows within about two months.

We have three species of woodpeckers that visit our feeders to feed successfully. Red Head, Red Belly and Harry. Maybe yours is retarded? I believe the animal kingdom has, like humans, critters with varying degrees of mental capacities. Once I had a ground hog that, unlike his neighbors, dug his den in a ditch so it filled with water with every rain… we called him retarded…. He did not drown though. He actually died of lead poisoning.

When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

When all you have is a pecker, every problem looks like a...

a...

um...

ahhh...

um...

...something that needs to be pecked?