Acorn Woodpeckers Waiting for Delivery
With the tree having died due to old age, these two have taken up a post looking for the next delivery of acorns from family members only to be pounded into this carefully chosen stump (about 15 feet and already having started as a cache). Unless someone actually removes the stump, this is good for 100 years or more since it's too short to be toppled by wind.
Acorn woodpeckers know every tree in their family territories, but in the vast oak woodlands, there are only two possible thieves: other woodpeckers or scrub jays (or Steller's jays which are much less common). Scrub jays prefer getting acorns in the leave litter, and other acorn woodpeckers are too busy protecting their caches from other woodpeckers.
The family: The breeding habitat is forested areas with oaks in the hills of coastal areas and foothills of California and the southwestern United States south to Colombia. This species may occur at low elevations in the north of its range, but rarely below 1,000 m (3,300 ft) in Central America, and it breeds up to the timberline. The breeding pair excavate a nest in a large cavity in a dead tree or a dead part of a tree. A group of adults may participate in nesting activities: field studies have shown that breeding groups range from monogamous pairs to breeding collectives of seven males and three females, plus up to 10 nonbreeding helpers. Young from a single brood have been found with multiple paternity. Female will destroy eggs if there are more than seven in one nest.
Usually you'll hear the very familiar (well, familiar if you live near oak woodlands) "Waka, Waka, Waka" before you see them. There are over 20 kinds of native oaks in California, each producing different acorns, and there is definitely a preference for certain acorns. Three-inch acorns are not preferred, probably because they're unwieldy to carry and hammer into trunks of trees. One common behavior is to watch an Acorn Woodpecker drop an acorn. look down at it for perhaps five minutes, and then decide it's easier to fly to another tree and try again. Maybe that's how California got to have such a huge range. The California Blue Oak covers 2,939,000 acres of the state. That's a whole lot of acorns in just one state. (I suggest you take a look at the range map which spreads from coastal woodlands of California to lower elevations of Columbia.)
Drumming: The mating "call" of the acorn woodpecker is a drumming into (preferably) large trunks and branches of oaks, but they will use whatever makes the loudest noise. About ten years ago, several families decided that the metal downspouts of a large retirement complex (Rossmoor) make ideal drums while making live miserable for the several thousand retired residents. The residents got a petition to shoot acorn woodpeckers, but the city council didn't think it a good idea to have 90 year-old humans with rifles shooting at anything especially in very close housing. The drumming lasted for just two mating seasons when it may have become too noisy even for the woodpeckers.
Families: The breeding habitat is forested areas with oaks in the hills of coastal areas and foothills of California and the southwestern United States south to Colombia. This species may occur at low elevations in the north of its range, but rarely below 1,000 m (3,300 ft) in Central America, and it breeds up to the timberline. The breeding pair excavate a nest in a large cavity in a dead tree or a dead part of a tree. A group of adults may participate in nesting activities: field studies have shown that breeding groups range from monogamous pairs to breeding collectives of seven males and three females, plus up to 10 nonbreeding helpers. Young from a single brood have been found with multiple paternity.
Image Above: Taken five years ago, I haven't been able to make the climb to this particular stump because of the terrain versus the knees. I'm sure it's still there, and the largest of the trees used for caches are closer to the base of Mt. Diablo and easier to get to.
The female is to the right, the male to the left. Identifying sexes in Acorn Woodpeckers is easy. The white area above the beak on the male covers everything to the red cap whereas, with the female, there is a break in the pattern: white to black to red.
Acorn Woodpeckers Waiting for Delivery
With the tree having died due to old age, these two have taken up a post looking for the next delivery of acorns from family members only to be pounded into this carefully chosen stump (about 15 feet and already having started as a cache). Unless someone actually removes the stump, this is good for 100 years or more since it's too short to be toppled by wind.
Acorn woodpeckers know every tree in their family territories, but in the vast oak woodlands, there are only two possible thieves: other woodpeckers or scrub jays (or Steller's jays which are much less common). Scrub jays prefer getting acorns in the leave litter, and other acorn woodpeckers are too busy protecting their caches from other woodpeckers.
The family: The breeding habitat is forested areas with oaks in the hills of coastal areas and foothills of California and the southwestern United States south to Colombia. This species may occur at low elevations in the north of its range, but rarely below 1,000 m (3,300 ft) in Central America, and it breeds up to the timberline. The breeding pair excavate a nest in a large cavity in a dead tree or a dead part of a tree. A group of adults may participate in nesting activities: field studies have shown that breeding groups range from monogamous pairs to breeding collectives of seven males and three females, plus up to 10 nonbreeding helpers. Young from a single brood have been found with multiple paternity. Female will destroy eggs if there are more than seven in one nest.
Usually you'll hear the very familiar (well, familiar if you live near oak woodlands) "Waka, Waka, Waka" before you see them. There are over 20 kinds of native oaks in California, each producing different acorns, and there is definitely a preference for certain acorns. Three-inch acorns are not preferred, probably because they're unwieldy to carry and hammer into trunks of trees. One common behavior is to watch an Acorn Woodpecker drop an acorn. look down at it for perhaps five minutes, and then decide it's easier to fly to another tree and try again. Maybe that's how California got to have such a huge range. The California Blue Oak covers 2,939,000 acres of the state. That's a whole lot of acorns in just one state. (I suggest you take a look at the range map which spreads from coastal woodlands of California to lower elevations of Columbia.)
Drumming: The mating "call" of the acorn woodpecker is a drumming into (preferably) large trunks and branches of oaks, but they will use whatever makes the loudest noise. About ten years ago, several families decided that the metal downspouts of a large retirement complex (Rossmoor) make ideal drums while making live miserable for the several thousand retired residents. The residents got a petition to shoot acorn woodpeckers, but the city council didn't think it a good idea to have 90 year-old humans with rifles shooting at anything especially in very close housing. The drumming lasted for just two mating seasons when it may have become too noisy even for the woodpeckers.
Families: The breeding habitat is forested areas with oaks in the hills of coastal areas and foothills of California and the southwestern United States south to Colombia. This species may occur at low elevations in the north of its range, but rarely below 1,000 m (3,300 ft) in Central America, and it breeds up to the timberline. The breeding pair excavate a nest in a large cavity in a dead tree or a dead part of a tree. A group of adults may participate in nesting activities: field studies have shown that breeding groups range from monogamous pairs to breeding collectives of seven males and three females, plus up to 10 nonbreeding helpers. Young from a single brood have been found with multiple paternity.
Image Above: Taken five years ago, I haven't been able to make the climb to this particular stump because of the terrain versus the knees. I'm sure it's still there, and the largest of the trees used for caches are closer to the base of Mt. Diablo and easier to get to.
The female is to the right, the male to the left. Identifying sexes in Acorn Woodpeckers is easy. The white area above the beak on the male covers everything to the red cap whereas, with the female, there is a break in the pattern: white to black to red.