Acorn Woodpecker

                        If you're like me, an Acorn Woodpecker will probably make you smile.

Acorn Woodpeckers are a medium size, mountain dwelling bird with an outsized birdsonality. They’re comical in manner and appearance with more than enough charm to keep you smiling. Often described as clown-faced, they suggest evolution has a sense of humor. 

They live in the forest, but not in every forest. Their range only covers parts of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Mexico. Oak and pine forests are their preferred habitat, especially the oak forests where acorns provide a primary food resource.

As woodpeckers, they exploit the dead and dying limbs of trees to chisel holes to make granaries. They stuff acorns into the round holes for their winter food supply. Some insects are stored for future consumption, too. These granary trees are valuable to the Acorn Woodpecker’s survival, so they guard them closely.

Making granaries allows Acorn Woodpeckers to remain in one location from year to year, thus insuring a territory with abundant resources. They have a complex social structure in which mate sharing, group sex and infanticide all coexist to benefit the group as a whole.

The sexes look alike…almost. Both sexes have red heads, but the male’s red extends further forward. The male is on the left.  The other two are females. 

Hanging on trees and poles, they use their stiff tail feathers for support. 

Funny looking or not, the Acorn Woodpeckers invite you to let them entertain you.

Take the bait! 

As with any bird, the brief investment in time spent pays off with a smile. You could be measurably poorer without it.

Allan

Credit: Cornell Lab of Ornithology, All About Birds; Carly Hodes

Credit: The Sibley Guide to Birds 2^nd Edition

Steller’s Jay

In the predawn light of New Year’s Day, 2014, this Steller’s Jay looked strikingly blue, reflecting the blue sky above Summerhaven, Arizona.

Summerhaven is at 8200 feet of elevation, so it gets cold. Cold enough to snow, even in Arizona, but this was a clear blue-sky morning.

The Steller’s Jay is comfortable at the snow line. This is where he finds his food.  If he finds more than he can eat, he slyly stashes some under the snow when out of sight of the other birds.  He uses great care to conceal this tactic.  Fortunately for him, he has the remarkable ability to remember his hundreds of food caches.

Despite squabbles and a mistrusting nature, they are social birds. Traveling in small groups, they keep an eye on one another while foraging.  They watch to partake in the other's bounty…unwelcomed as that may be.

Stealing is fair play for jays. 

They steal a lot of things.  Jays are notorious nest-robbers, stealing eggs and nestlings alike.  Regarded as a bit of a bully, they’ll steal items from your picnic table or campsite if the opportunity presents.

I was at my brother’s cabin on Mt. Lemmon watching these Steller’s Jays interact. 

Peanuts scattered on the deck railing attracted the first Steller’s Jay. Soon afterwards, a half-dozen more joined in. 

A peanut tossed in one jay’s direction was quickly snatched up, but a peanut tossed between jays prompted a scramble. 

Jays are smart and they understand if they’re going to be first, second or third to a peanut.  They seldom waste energy on a fruitless chase…remaining perched when outmaneuvered.

A lucky jay got away with the peanut prize this time, but a short chase informed the winner…it was not an uncontested nut.



(click on any picture to enlarge)

The Acorn Woodpecker shares the same mountain habitat with the Steller’s Jay.  Too small to compete for peanuts with the Steller’s Jays, this one only observed from above.

Not shy of humans, Steller’s Jays will visit a feeder for suet, seeds or peanuts.  They’re enjoyable to watch for their stealthy tactics and sneaky antics.

Feeding wildlife is a questionable practice. I don’t feed other wildlife, but bird feeding is widely practiced with a long history. I doubt it affects the birds negatively and may be an important food source in winter when natural food sources are hard to find.

I would suggest bird feeding promotes awareness of birds and that may be of much greater benefit.

Allan

Credits:

Cornell Lab of Ornithology, All About Birds

http://www.humanesociety.org/animals/resources/tips/feeding_birds.html

Acorn Woodpecker

Imagine your life if you were required to beat your head against a tree!?!

The Acorn Woodpecker is a unique bird, partly because of its complicated social demands. Young woodpeckers stay in the family group for years, to help raise future generations.  Acorn Woodpecker ‘families’ may contain up to seven breeding males and three breeding females.  The females communally nest and produce young from several males. Individual females may destroy eggs already laid in the communal nest, until all the females are ready to lay eggs.

They cache acorns as their primary food; hence their name, but they also eat insects.  Here lies the amazing part.  Imagine repeatedly banging your head against a tree to make holes!  By chiseling hundreds or even thousands of holes in trees, they make granaries.  These trees become ‘granary’ trees.  They guard these granary trees against thieving jays, and other food bandits.  They even timed their breeding cycle to autumn, to correspond with the oak tree’s acorns.

In reference sources they are sometimes referred to as ‘clown-faced’.  Using a little imagination, you can see it.  It is a fun comparison and I doubt it bothers the woodpeckers at all.   Walter Lantz, the animator, is said to have used the Acorn Woodpecker’s unusual laughing call to give voice to his Woody Woodpecker cartoon character. He used the Pileated Woodpecker physical appearance, to model his cartoon-bird’s looks.

I found this Acorn Woodpecker in Madera Canyon on the western face of the Santa Rita Mountains. That’s in southern Arizona.  I didn’t see him hiding or retrieving any acorns.  It was January and he was likely living off what he had already stored last fall.  I did see him drumming on a tree though. He wasn’t making much noise in the cold mountain air, nor was he making a hole into the healthy tree, so what was his point?   It could have been just woodpecker boredom; I don’t know…it’s just an observation.  Maybe there is some personal satisfaction in pounding your head into a tree?

Allan

2012