- Melanerpes formicivorus
Identification
23 cm (8-9 in)
Male is black with a red crown, bright yellow throat, and white and black spotted chest and belly. The crown and throat feathers stand out and look beautiful in the sunlight.
Female lacks the yellow throat and has a smaller red patch on the back of the head.
Distribution
Western United States, Mexico, and northern Central America. Subspecies flavigula is a common bird in the Western Andes of Colombia.
Taxonomy
Subspecies
There are 7 subspecies[1]:
- M. f. bairdi:
- North-western Oregon to northern Baja California
- M. f. angustifrons: dark brown eyes and shorter wings
- Cape region of southern Baja California
- M. f. formicivorus (aculeatus):
- Arizona, New Mexico and western Texas to south-eastern Mexico (west of Chiapas)
- M. f. albeolus:
- M. f. lineatus:
- M. f. striatipectus:
- M. f. flavigula:
- Andes of Colombia
Habitat
Dry pine and oak woods. The Colombian subspecies lives in the subtropical zone, at 1650 meters above sea level.
Behaviour
Like all woodpeckers, these birds use their tails to steady themselves when clinging to a tree.
Diet
Photo by Stanley Jones
Santa Catalina Natural Area, Tucson, Pima County, Arizona, USA, July 1981
The bird's main diet consists of acorns, seeds (particularly of pine trees), fruits, catkins, berries, sap, nectar and insects.
They live in colonies and store acorns in holes drilled by generations of woodpeckers. Acorn Woodpeckers have the unique habit of pecking individual holes into both dead and live pine and oak trees and then placing acorns within the holes. The acorns, however, are only a reserve food source (i.e. for winter). (The Colombian subspecies has been observed to peck small holes in living trees and put nothing inside, a puzzling behavior given the year-round availability of food in its range.)
Breeding
These birds are highly social and live in groups of twelve or more. In this group, only a few may mate, but all take responsibility for raising the babies and creating nests. The nest is built in a tree cavity. They lay 4-5 white eggs with an 11-12 day incubation period. Fledging occurs 30-32 days after hatching.
References
- Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, D. Roberson, T. A. Fredericks, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2015. The eBird/Clements checklist of birds of the world: v2015, with updates to August 2015. Downloaded from http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
- Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive (retrieved March 2016)
- bird-friends.com
- BF Member observations
Recommended Citation
- BirdForum Opus contributors. (2024) Acorn Woodpecker. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 5 May 2024 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Acorn_Woodpecker
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