Red-headed Woodpecker (RHWO)

Melanerpes erythrocephalus

Adult Red-headed Woodpecker © Ryan Sanderson / Macaulay Library
Juvenile Red-headed Woodpecker © Peter Hawrylyshyn / Macaulay Library

Range

The range of the Red-headed Woodpecker extends from the southern United States with its westernmost breeding range ending at the Rocky Mountains. The eastern end of its range extends into New York and Vermont during the breeding season. The breeding range at its furthest north barely dips into Canada, making its range almost exclusively in the United States. Red-headed Woodpeckers are irregular partial or short-distance migrators. They will often leave the western and northern parts of their range in winter. Migration heavily depends on acorn and beech nut crops. In fall migration, they move during the day; during spring migration, they move at night.

Additional Maps

Identification

The Red-headed Woodpecker is a medium-sized woodpecker. Adults have a crimson red head with a white breast and black wings. The secondary feathers of the Red-headed Woodpecker are white, creating a white patch on their black wings. Juvenile Red-headed Woodpeckers have brown heads with an overall more dingy and brown appearance than adults.

The Red-headed Woodpecker gives cackles, chirps, and other raucous calls. Their most common call is a hoarse, shrill tchur similar to the Red-bellied Woodpecker’s call, but higher pitched and less rolling. Red-headed Woodpeckers make shrill charr-charr notes when chasing each other.

Listen to its songs and calls here.

Habitat

During the breeding season, Red-headed Woodpeckers reside in deciduous woodlands. In these deciduous woodlands, they will live in areas with beech or oak, beaver swamps, parks, farmland, orchards, burned areas, recent clearings, dead or dying trees, river bottoms, scattered trees in grasslands, roadsides, and forest edges. Dead hollowed-out trees are important to the nesting of Red-headed Woodpeckers as they use them to hollow out and make nesting sites. 

In the northern part of the Red-headed Woodpecker’s winter range, they live in mature stands of forest. They especially favor forests with oak, oak-hickory, ash, beech, and maple. In the southern part, they are somewhat nomadic as they may be there one year and absent the next; when they are there, they live in pine and pine-oak.

Conservation Status 

Status by State
  • Listed as Endangered in Connecticut by the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection
  • Listed as Threatened in New Jersey by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection
  • Listed as Special Concern in New York by The New York Natural Heritage Program
  • Listed as S1B (Critically imperiled – breeding populations) in Vermont by the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department

Threats to Conservation

The largest threat to Red-headed Woodpeckers is a change in habitat. Oak savannah, the species’ natural habitat, has mostly disappeared. When choosing somewhere to inhabit, Red-headed Woodpeckers often have to choose between a higher abundance of resources or fewer predators and competitors. This competition is another major factor that is a threat to Red-headed Woodpeckers. European Starlings are seen to be one of their greatest competitors as European Starlings are cavity nesters who cannot dig their own holes, leading them to take the nesting sites of Red-headed Woodpeckers. 

Red-headed Woodpeckers are seen as a nuisance bird, especially in the Midwest and the South where they attempt to nest in utility poles. With a permit, or illegally, some utility companies shoot Red-headed Woodpeckers off their poles.

Funding Opportunities
General Management Guides
Regional Management Guides
Northeast
Midwest & Central
Resources
Works Cited