The Wildbird & Backyard Newsletter

Winter 2008

This season's articles (Excerpted from our printed newsletter):

The Red-Headed Woodpecker

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The Red-Headed Woodpecker

Easily identified by its red head and white wing patches, this woodpecker species is also the most adept at catching flying insects. Historically a species with population fluctuations, it has experienced a 4.6% decline per year since 1980 due to habitat destruction and other factors. These woodpeckers are fond of open agricultural country with groves of dead and dying trees, particularly orchards. Their habitat has been degraded by agricultural development, channeling of rivers, regeneration of eastern forests, fire suppression, and loss of small orchards. Red-headed woodpeckers are also frequently driven off by aggressive European Starlings, which occupy their nest holes in dying trees.

Red-headed Woodpeckers are monomorphic, which means the males and females look exactly the same. Even researchers in the field cannot tell them apart. These woodpeckers, however, have the ability to see in ultra-violet colors and with that unique eyesight are able to distinguish between their sexes.

These woodpeckers consume seeds, nuts, sap, corn, fruit, insects, bird eggs, nestlings, adult birds, and mice. They eat mostly insects and plant material in summer and mostly nuts in winter. They will forage on ground, capture insects in flight, glean food from vegetation, or chisel trees for wood-boring insects and sap. Most adapted of all the woodpeckers for flycatching. It hides insects and seeds in cracks in wood, under bark, in fence posts, and under roof shingles. Grasshoppers are regularly stored alive, but wedged into crevices so tightly that they cannot escape. There are nearly 200 species of woodpeckers in the world and only four of them, including the Red-headed, store food for winter consumption. It is also one of the most aggressive members of the Woodpecker Family.

Newsletter Archive

• Fall 2008: The Ruby-Throated Hummingbird
• Winter 2007: The Red Crossbill and Winter Bird Bathing.
• Summer 2007: The Common Loon and "Greening" Our Environment.
• Spring 2007: The Baltimore Oriole.
• Winter 2006: The Mourning Dove and Four "Other Things" to Feed Birds.
• Fall 2006: The Red-Bellied Woodpecker.
• Summer 2006: The Ruby-Throated Hummingbird and Feeder Frenzy: Nectar Feeders.
• Spring 2006: The Cooper's Hawk and Feeder Frenzy: Fruit and Jelly Feeders.
• Winter 2005: The Brown Creeper and Feeder Frenzy: Hopper Feeders.
• Fall 2005: The Killdeer and Feeder Frenzy: Tray/Platform Feeders.
• Summer 2005: The Tree Swallow and Feeder Frenzy: Tube Feeders.