If it's a flicker, give a neighbor a tail prop suet feeder and a big fly-through birdfeeder. Recycled plastic "lumber" feeders that look like wood are easy to clean and indestructible. The flicker will hang out there and take over that roof. Generally they don't go into house wood unless there's insects and rot there. Flickers will drill very loudly on metal roof vents in mating season to show off.

A regular garden hose with a variable spray nozzle set to "jet" does wonders for the guano :-)

Thanks, I will give it one more try before putting paid to him. He wasn't after insects when he drilled the door, he was looking to make a nest in my roof area along the center beam. He pulled out several pounds of insulation, after he made his door, and was setting up housekeeping. He hasn't been pleased since I covered the hole with sheet metal (and man can he make noise when he drills on that, I once heard him over a half mile away. Most of the time he now squats over a box window in the downstairs bathroom and that is where he deposits most of his presents to me.

ONe flicker does not an "infestation" make. Perhaps he is just looking for a handout -- why don't you put up a suet feeder for him? We feed these guys -- 4 of them -- through the winter and they haven't yet taken on our house. Please don't shoot him.

I would not expect a flicker to be drilling a nest in October. Maybe looking for winter shelter? I feed flickers too, lots of them here, and sure they drum on the gutters in spring to mark their territory but they leave the house alone. I don't know what they nest in but there's plenty of trees here for them to dig into. I know there's a woodpecker nest in one of the trees here.

Maybe if you got a woodpecker house, the flicker would move into that and leave your house alone?