Three-toed Woodpecker

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Three-toed Woodpecker
The Three-toed Woodpecker is a robin-sized woodpecker. It is similar to the Black-backed Woodpecker but smaller. Its bill is also shorter and its back is barred black and white. The male has a yellow crown while the female has a solid black crown.

The Three-toed Woodpecker feeds by probing and drilling for wood-boring larvae of moths and beetles (probably one of the most important birds in combating forest insect pests in the western United States). In Colorado, it consumes spruce beetles for 65 percent of its annual diet and 99 percent of its winter diet. It also eats ants, wood-boring larvae, caterpillars, fruits, mast and cambium.

The Three-toed Woodpecker is a year-round resident in Alaska and east across Canada to extreme northern United States and south in West to mountains of Arizona and New Mexico. In the southern and eastern portions of its range, the Three-toed Woodpecker is less numerous than the Black-backed Woodpecker, but its range extends farther south in the Rockies. It is also more sedentary, rarely moving far from its home range. The Three-toed Woodpecker prefers coniferous forests in the boreal zone, especially where burned, logged or swampy.
Three-toed Woodpecker Range Map

The Three-toed Woodpecker excavates its nest cavities each year in dead trees or in dead limbs with decayed heartwood in live trees. It usually locates its nest holes 5 to 12 feet above the ground in pine, aspen, spruce and cedar.

Visit Shaw Creek Bird Supply to see our selection of Woodpecker Feeders.