Red-headed Woodpecker (Melanerpes erythrocephalus)

Distribution

Breeding: Widespread, but patchily distributed across the eastern United States, west to the edge of the Great Plains in New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana. Also found in extreme southern Canada from Saskatchewan to New Brunswick. Most common in the mid-western and Gulf Coast states.

Winter: Regularly through the southern two-thirds of the breeding range, rarely to the northern limits of the breeding range.

Breeding habitat

Open woodland, especially with beech or oak, and open situations with scattered trees, e.g. parks, cultivated areas, gardens, groves, farm country, orchards, and shade trees in towns. Generally avoids unbroken forest, favoring open country or at least clearings in the woods. Also found in pine-savannah, pine-oak barrens, forested wetlands or flooded timber, and timber stands treated with herbicides or burneds.

Conservation status

This species is of high conservation concern, primarily because of precipitous population declines nearly throughout its range. Overall, a 50 % loss has been noted rangewide since 1966. Reasons for this decline are not clear, and understanding this species’ precise habitat relationships and sensitivity to silvicultural and other land-use practices will be important for conserving future populations.

Description

Male: Bright red head and neck; white breast, belly, rump, and vent; black back, tail, and wings with prominent white secondaries visible in flight and at rest.

Female: Same as adult male.

Juvenile: Mottled brown head and neck; white breast, belly, and rump variably marked with brown streaking; dark brown back and upperwings; white secondaries are broken by brown lateral bars; tail is dark brown.

Vocalizations

Drum: advertises and defends territory by drumming on tree-trunk or snag; drum is fairly short, weak, and slow compared with other woodpeckers.

Calls: A loud churr-churr and yarrow-yarrow yarrow. Contact call a variable, wheezy queeah or queerp; weaker and less vibrant than Red-bellied Woodpecker. In flight a low, harsh chug like Red-bellied Woodpecker. Close contact call is a gentle, dry rattle krrrrr.

Foraging strategy

An opportunistic forager, often seen on tree trunks and major limbs, but less likely to drill for food than other woodpeckers. Flies out from a perch to catch insects in the air or on ground; also gleans insects from bark and foliage. Gathers acorns, beechnuts, and other nuts in fall, storing them in holes and crevices, then feeding on them during winter.

Diet

A wide variety of food items has been documented, including wood boring and flying insects, fruit, corn, eggs and nestlings of small birds (e.g. Purple Martins and bluebirds), small vertebrates (e.g. mice), seeds; may be attracted to a backyard with suet, sunflower seeds, cracked corn, and bread.

Behavior and displays

• Male establishes and advertises territory with calling and drumming.

• Displays, including aggressive ones, involve bowing head and spreading wings.

• Both sexes regularly use highly aggressive “bobbing” or “bowing” displays, with head pointed forward, wings drooped and tail erect at an angle.

• When excited around nest cavity, performs bowing display and also “wing-spreading” and “tail-spreading” displays.

Courtship

• Courtship activities focus on the nest site and include a horizontal pose with neck stretched forward, plumage sleeked, shoulders humped.

• Male and female spend much time playing “hide and seek” around dead stubs and telephone poles, with individuals on opposite sides alternatively looking at each other around one side and then the other. Also often chase one another from tree to tree.

• Copulatory behavior, like courtship, is closely associated with the nest limb and has 3 basic components: ”mutual tapping,” “reverse mounting” (female on flutters onto male’s back), and “copulation.”

Nesting

Nest Site: The nest cavity is usually in a bare dead tree or limb. The male’s winter roosting cavity may be used, or a new cavity may be excavated; both adults excavate (mostly the male), the female usually inspects the nest cavity.

Height: Ranges from near ground level to over 100 feet (30 meters).

Nest: No nest construction other than wood chips left in the bottom of the cavity.

Eggs: 3–8, usually 4–5, white eggs are laid one per day.

Incubation period: Incubation by both sexes, with male incubating at night, lasts about 14 days.

Nestling period: Both parents feed the young; nestlings leave the nest 27–31 days after hatching.

Fledgling period: Both parents feed recent fledglings; they follow the parents until chased away about 25 days later. Pairs may start on a second nesting attempt while still feeding fledglings from the first. The fledglings may be driven away if the adults begin to raise a second brood.

Broods: 1 or 2 broods per year, commonly two broods in the southern portions of the breeding range.

Cowbird Parasitism: Sometimes parasitized by the Brown-headed Cowbird, but, as the Red-headed Woodpecker is a lousy foster parent, the parasite is almost always unsuccessful.

Notes

• In resident birds, male’s winter territory may become breeding territory.

• Second brood may be raised in same nest but more often in new cavity.