Red-headed Woodpecker

Melanerpes erythrocephalus

Order PICIFORMES - Family PICIDAE

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1. Cool Facts
2. Description
3. Sound
4. Range
5. Habitat
6. Food
7. Behavior
8. Reproduction
9. Conservation Status
10. Other Names

An unmistakable bird, the Red-headed Woodpecker is striking at rest and in flight, showing its colors of red, black, and white. It is one of the most aggressive members of the family and one of the most omnivorous.

Cool Facts

• The Red-headed Woodpecker is one of only four woodpeckers known to store food, and it is the only one known to cover the stored food with wood or bark. It hides insects and seeds in cracks in wood, under bark, in fence posts, and under roof shingles. Grasshoppers are regularly stored alive, but wedged into crevices so tightly that they cannot escape.

• In addition to attacking other birds to keep them out of its territory, the Red-headed Woodpecker is also known to remove the eggs of other species from nests and nest boxes, destroy nests, and even to enter duck-nesting boxes and puncture the duck eggs.

• The Red-headed Woodpecker benefited from the chestnut blight and Dutch elm disease. The devastating tree diseases killed many trees and provided nest sites for the woodpeckers.

Description

• Size: 19-23 cm (7-9 in)
• Wingspan: 42 cm (17 in)
• Weight: 56-91 g (1.98-3.21 ounces)

• Medium-sized woodpecker.
• Bright red hood.
• White chest.

• Black wings with large white panels (the secondaries).
• White in wings obvious at rest and in flight.
• Rump white.
• Tail black with white outermost feathers.
• Bill bluish gray with black tip.
• Eye dark.

Sex Differences

Sexes alike.

Immature

Juvenile with gray head and black bars on white secondaries. Immature with some red in gray head.

Sound

Call a loud "tchur-tchur."

»listen to songs of this species

Range

Summer Range

Breeds from southern Canada to Gulf Coast, east of the Rocky Mountains and west of New England and eastern Canada.

Winter Range

Withdraws from northern part of breeding range and winters farther southwest in Texas. Wintering numbers vary greatly from year to year.

Habitat

• Breeds in deciduous woodlands, especially beech or oak, river bottoms, open woods, groves of dead and dying trees, orchards, parks, open country with scattered trees, forest edges, and open wooded swamps with dead trees and stumps. Attracted to burns and recent clearings.
• Winters in mature stands of forest, especially those with oaks.

Food

Most omnivorous woodpecker. Beech and oak mast, seeds, nuts, berries, fruit, insects, bird eggs, nestlings, mice.

Behavior

Foraging

Frequently flycatches for insects, flying out and returning to the same perch. Drills for insects in wood or bark. Occasionally visits feeders.

Reproduction

Nest Type

Nests in holes in dead trees or in dead branches, preferring snags with little bark remaining.

Egg Description

White.

Clutch Size

Usually 5 eggs. Range: 4-7.

Condition at Hatching

Hatch naked and helpless.

Conservation Status

Breeding Bird Survey data show the species is declining over much of its breeding range. An edge species, it declines where forests mature. It is increasing in areas where beavers are increasing and creating more flooded beaver meadows with dead snags.

Other Names

Pic à tête rouge (French)
Carpintero de cabeza roja (Spanish)

Sources used to construct this page:

Smith, K. G., J. H. Withgott, and P. G. Rodewald. 2000. Red-headed Woodpecker (Melanerpes erythrocephalus). In The Birds of North America, No. 518 (A. Poole and F. Gill, eds.). The Birds of North America, Inc., Philadelphia, PA.