The Red Headed Woodpecker

Description

Just seven to nine inches in length, the adult red-headed woodpecker is still an exciting bird to see. Adults have a black back with white wing tips and underbelly. As the name suggests the head is a deep red nearly down to the shoulder. Unusual for woodpeckers, the females are identical to the males. The inexperienced birdwatcher will sometimes mistake the Red-bellied woodpecker for the red-headed. That species has some red on the head, but nothing like the red-headed woodpecker’s fully dark red head.

Territory

These woodpeckers range from southern Canada to Florida, east of the Rocky Mountains. They are a migratory species in that they travel widely throughout their range in search of food, but do not have the rigidly established patterns usually associated with a true migration. In general they will winter from the Great Lakes region down to Florida and return to breeding areas as far north as the Dakotas and southern Canada in the the spring. Southern birds are often permanent residents.

Behavior

This type of woodpecker is a vivacious bird, very active in the air, on the ground, and of course in trees. The red-headed woodpecker is an adept aerial hunter but will drop from branches to the ground after worms, insect, lizards and even mice. It is not unusual to see this woodpecker foraging for food on the ground as they feed heavily on seeds and nuts, particularly in winter. It is less common to see a red-headed woodpecker gleaning or drilling on a tree or snag as they are not particularly strong excavators by woodpecker standards, but they do love fruit.

Red-headed woodpeckers are vocal birds with a variety of calls, cackles and chirps. In addition to these vocalizations, they are also active drummers and many have specific drumming sites. In the spring, pairs use drumming to communicate with each other regarding nesting sites and will frequently stop to drum to each other during the actual excavation of the nest.

Red-headed Woodpeckers prefer to nest in barkless stumps or trunks of trees, either dead or partially so. In lieu they will also use telephone poles, buildings or other man-made wooden structures. It takes only 2 weeks for the male Red-headed to excavate a nesting hole. They like to keep their nests fairly high, between 8 and 80 feet (2.5 to 25 m) above the ground. They will sometimes use natural cavities or constructed nest boxes, but when attempting to lure a red-headed to use a nest box, keep in mind their preference for height.

Quick Facts

These were extremely unpopular birds with 18th and 19th century farmers and settlers for their habit of sampling large quantities of ripening fruit and leaving it to rot on the vine or tree. Some orchards estimated damages by the freight car rather than the bushel. Later, at at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th Red-headed woodpeckers were exterminated as pests through the 19th century, mostly due to building and pole damage. The Kansas City Electric Car Company hired an official red-headed woodpecker exterminator at the turn of the 20th century to protect the wooden poles that supported the feed cables.

Red-headed woodpeckers are also food hoarders, but do not create specific storage the way that Acorn woodpeckers do. Instead they will cram insects, grain, or nuts into natural cavities in bark or exposed wood. Sometimes, they will use roof shingles as an alternative to naturally created crannies.

Red Headed Woodpeckers are relatively aggressive and defend both their nest sites and their food storage sites.

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