Red-cockaded Woodpecker

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Red-cockaded Woodpecker
The Red-cockaded Woodpecker is on the U.S. Endangered Species List. It is classified as endangered throughout its range in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. This species needs old-growth pines for its habitat, and in the 1800s great stands of these trees were felled across the Southeast for lumber. The 20th century saw the development of renewable forestry techniques, and there are now many pinelands, but most of them grow in rows and lack the diversity of the former forests. The Red-cockaded Woodpecker requires trees that are a minimum of 80 to 120 years old, and it will be a long while before it is known whether it will recover.

The Red-cockaded Woodpecker is one of the least known of the woodpecker family. Although widespread in the Southeast, it is local and restricted to mature pine woods that contain trees whose heartwood has been softened by fungus, where the bird digs its nest cavity. Much less noisy and conspicuous than other woodpeckers and therefore seldom noticed, it travels in family groups of four to six. This woodpecker also has the peculiar trait of digging holes in trees adjacent to its nest, allowing pine gum or resin to ooze from the holes. Such signs of pitch may be evidence of its presence.
Red-cockaded Woodpecker Range Map

The Red-cockaded Woodpecker prefers living pines for foraging substrate, especially larger pines. It consumes mostly insects (larvae of wood-boring insects, beetles, grubs, ants, crickets, caterpillars, scales, bark lice and grasshoppers). It also consumes mast (primarily seeds of conifers), fruit pulp, and poison-ivy and bayberry seeds. The Red-cockaded Woodpecker excavates nest holes in mature living pines infected with red heartrot. The same pair may reuse a cavity for several years. It breeds cooperatively with auxiliary or helper birds (clan) aiding a mated pair in the rearing of young. Clan size is generally two to four birds at the beginning of the breeding season.

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