It could be a carpenter bee. Check out carpenter bees on google.

Yes carpenter bees make beautiful holes.

Woodpeckers drill holes for 3 reasons: 1) they perceive there is a morsel for them under the surface, 2) to start a nest hole, and 3) the male drumming in his territory during the start of the nesting season. One year, I had a flicker that liked to drum on my rain gutter just above my bedroom window. (It made an early morning alarm clock.) That would have stopped in a few days, but he was chased away when he started attacking the soffets.

You may be able to keep woodpeckers away from a few objects by installing likenesses of owls and hawks on those.

I wonder if it could have been a squirrel?

If they are really small then I too bet that the carpenter bees are the culprits! They are everywhere here right now, looking for good nesting sites.....there are a couple of natural products to repel them, Outlast NBS 30 works.

Now what does one do to repel a bear? He has pulled down the feeders 4 times, even empty.

Lynn, I would put away your bird feeders for the summer. I used to love feeding the birds all year round (beautiful migrating flocks!), but when a bear killed one of my dogs and trashed my porch, the Fish & Game agent told me I was attracting them to the property with my bird feeders. So now I wean the birds off the feed in April.

I would not think it would be a woodpecker that is not their natural type of material to peck. I would suspect the bee or squirrel.

Well, I saw the guy today--caught him in the act--and it was a bird indeed! It was blue or blue-ish and fairly small sized, smaller than a robin but larger than a sparrow. It was gone in a flash so I couldn't really identify it but I suspect it was a young woodpecker, although I agree that the soft material of the planter might not be what they normally peck. The brown and uneven surface does look a lot like bark though. On the other hand, I could be completely wrong and it is some other bird--I'm afraid I don't know birds well. The hole is about 1 1/2 inches in diameter and perfectly round. I can't think of any fake owls that would deter it, but I wonder if garlic rubbed on the side of the pot would? Or is there some type of spray I can spray on the pot to make it taste bad? I don't want to kill either the flowers or the bird.

I wonder if you could wrap some tape around the pot with the sticky side out if that would deter him, or soak some cotton balls in some strong smelling liquid and put them on the pot.
hope you get rid of him.

I've never seen a bird that would make a perfect hole like that and certainly never in a planter. I do have issues with woodpeckers on my deck posts though... we tried several things and finally wrapped the posts temporarily in slick cheap plastic tablecloths and the bird has left them alone. You might try making a skirt with plastic around your pot. I've also heard that rubbing Lysol on siding will deter birds, not sure what that would do to your planter though.

back when we had a big woodpecker banging holes in our cedar siding on the wall that our bed was up against, you can not imagine the noise!, I tacked a string with a pie plate dangling on it to the wall. It will move in the breeze and the shiny surface scares them off. So you might try that it will not look great but might only take a day or so to break the bird from coming to it. Even something like wind chimes might work, the movement would scare them off.
I bet that bird is making it a fine nest out of that coco mat stuff from the planter.

Our woodpeckers here are bright red headed or bright yellow headed. There is one that I watch in the trees right outside of my office.

When we were in Oklahoma The one that was making the holes in our cedar siding ended up making a big hole and it then lived in our attic, funny thing was on the opposite end of the house another one did the same thing and was living in that side in our attic. One was red head one was yellow, when we would open the stairs to the attic you could see it. It would not fly off it would just cling to one of the beams and watch us. That thing was huge, it made a nest and had babies up there, the nest was on the drop down stairs! We knew it was there because we could hear the babies through the door. When we were sure they were all out of the nest we opened the stairs and oh what a mess! Giant nest, bird poop, and feathers everywhere!

I live in a cedar home. Wood peckers are my speciality. :0) We tack stripes of mylar to the house. The thin stipes of plastic flap in a slight breeze.....and aren't noisy. OR.....a childs pin wheel stuck in a flower pot....it's decorative and "scares" woodpeckers....:0)

Yes, bird feeders are a big attraction to bears and they will get more and more invasive. You essentially can feed the wildlife and have all the wildlife around or stop feeding them and get rid of them eventually. You cannot pick and choose which ones you want around unless you want to kill the bears. When the bears don't get enough food from your feeders they'll start tearing into other things and they'll get more and more bold. If you have garbage cans out, they'll be ripped open. Leave groceries in the car and it'll likely be opened. And if they're in a shed or garage, don't be surprised if eventually they try getting in there. Bears have also been known to become so desperate for food they actually go into houses and grocery stores. Once they have found a source of food and they'll keep coming back. Unless you want to kill the bear you need to dissuade it from coming around. As long as there's food, they'll keep coming back regularly.

This has other impacts too. They probably aren't going to get the nutrition they need just from the bird food - it's not formulated for bears and they won't forage as much for natural foods. Worse yet it starts to essentially tame the bears and that's not good. The impact from that can be quite dangerous to people and animals, including their own cubs. We talked about this in the thread about the bear place taming bears so I won't duplicate it here. Suffice to say that it's cute to hand feed wild animals and put ribbons on them but that doesn't domesticate them like a dog or cat.

As for woodpeckers, here they make perfectly round holes. I'd go with the wrap with plastic and see if that works. Could be a smell in it that is attracting them. Maybe try hanging some mothballs or wipe it with ammonia, vinegar or bleach. Not sure if that would help or not. Test it though for any affect to the container.