The Sibley Guide to Bird Life and Behavior. Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2003. “Acorn Woodpecker.” Birds of North America. Every fall they stash as many as thousands of acorns in holes drilled into dead tree stumps in preparation for winter. Otherwise glossy-black with streaky underparts. Koenig, Walter, Peter Stacey, Mark Stanback, and Ronald Mumme. Acorn woodpeckers are renowned food hoarders. Medium-sized woodpecker with unique face pattern: red crown, pale yellowish forehead and throat, and pale eye. The behaviour of acorn woodpeckers was compared in two locations (New Mexico and California) to test the hypothesis that saturation of the habitat by. This article appears in KBO’s 2013 Winter Newsletter.Įhrlich, Paul, David Dobkin, and Darryl Wheye. Old granaries are used year after year, but new ones are made as well. Habitat, Oak woods, groves, mixed forest, oak. All of the woodpeckers that live in a community are responsible for collecting and storing acorns. Reliance on specific oak habitats may make it vulnerable to the effects of climate change. These acorn storage sites are called granaries, and one granary may contain as many as 50,000 acorns. The woodpeckers collect acorns during autumn and winter and store them in dead trees and telephone poles and other manmade structures, including the siding of houses. Like so many other birds in North America, these woodpeckers face many threats including habitat. An Acorn Woodpecker group will excavate several large cavities in dead or live trees one cavity is typically used for the nest and the remaining cavities are used for roosting.Īcorns and insects comprise the bulk of the Acorn Woodpecker diet. Acorn Woodpeckers are very unusual members of the woodpecker. The Acorn Woodpecker (Melanerpes formicivorus) is a medium-sized woodpecker, 21 cm long with an average weight of 85 g. The number of breeding individuals varies, but usually consists of one or two females and up to four males per female. Only some of these individuals breed, while others help raise the young. Up to as many as 15 individuals from multiple generations will live together in an established territory. To accommodate a lifestyle of drumming on wood, the bone at the base of their bill is porous and acts as a shock absorber.Īcorn Woodpeckers are communal breeders, a characteristic shared by only three percent of all bird species. Their tongues wrap completely around their skulls and can extend out as far as 5 inches. They also have extremely long, sticky, and barbed tongues that help them probe crevices and collect insects. While many birds have three toespointing forward and one backwards on each foot, woodpeckers have two toes pointing forwards and two pointing backwards this arrangement allows woodpeckers to cling securely to the sides of trees. There are several morphological adaptations shared by woodpeckers. Male and females look similar, although males can be distinguished by the presence of more red on the top of their heads. Considered clown-faced in appearance, the Acorn Woodpecker’s distinctive “waka-waka” call can often be heard whenever oak trees are near. Oregon was believed to hold the most northerly population of this species until a colony was discovered in Washington in 1989. The Acorn Woodpecker (Melanerpes formicivorus) is common year-round in oak woodlands near the West Coast. By Ellie Armstrong, KBO Research and Monitoring Intern
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