Woodpecker (Melanerpes erythrocephalus)
Order: Piciformes, Family: Picidae
Woodpeckers range in size, from 6 to 9 inches long. Small to midsize birds, they cling to the trunks and large branches of trees and large cactus with their sharp claws. Their short legs and stiff, spine-tipped tails help them stay vertical.
They have long, pointed, chisel-like bills that enable them to bore into wood.
Twice the length of its bill, the woodpecker's narrow tongue is tipped with spear-like barbs, which the bird uses to impale wood-boring insects.
Male and female woodpeckers look very similar, except males have a red or yellow patch on their head that is lacking or much smaller on females.
I. DESCRIPTION:
- Woodpeckers range in size, from 6 to 9 inches long. Small to midsize birds, they cling to the trunks and large branches of trees and large cactus with their sharp claws. Their short legs and stiff, spine-tipped tails help them stay vertical.
- They have long, pointed, chisel-like bills that enable them to bore into wood.
- Twice the length of its bill, the woodpecker's narrow tongue is tipped with spear-like barbs, which the bird uses to impale wood-boring insects.
- Male and female woodpeckers look very similar, except males have a red or yellow patch on their head that is lacking or much smaller on females.
II. GEOGRAPHICAL RANGE AND HABITAT:
- Woodpeckers inhabit North America, and are prominent in the southwestern United States and Alaska.
- The live in holes in tall cactus and living or dead tree trunks and limbs.
III. DIET:
- Woodpeckers consume insects, sap, oak catkins, fruit and flower nectar. Occasionally, they eat grass seeds, lizards and bird eggs.
- Woodpeckers mostly forage in or near the forest canopy. They rarely go to the ground except to pick up grit and fallen acorns.
IV. LIFE CYCLE/SOCIAL STRUCTURE:
- Woodpeckers are highly gregarious and live together year-round in groups. Group members in temperate habitats do not forage together, but tropical populations do. Woodpeckers are extremely territorial.
- Woodpeckers tend to be sedentary, but some populations migrate in areas where there large seasonal fluctuations of insects.
- Each group contains one to seven male breeders and one to three egg-laying female. In groups with more than one female breeder, the female co-breeders lay their eggs in the same nest.
- Females sharing nesting sites regularly destroy eggs laid by their co-breeders. However, once females have established a normal laying sequence, egg destruction stops.
- The average clutch size for a single female is four eggs. Females lay eggs at approximately 24-hour intervals. Incubation lasts 11 days, and both the male and female sit on the eggs. Once the chicks have hatched, all group members participate in feeding them. Young leave the nest after 30 to 32 days.
V. SPECIAL NOTES/ADAPTATIONS:
- Woodpeckers in the U.S. Southwest live there all year, though some sapsuckers migrate south for the winter.
- In Arizona alone, there are eight different species of woodpeckers: acorn, Arizona, downy, Gila, hairy, ladder-backed, Lewis' and Strickland's.
- The species differ mainly in terms of color and color patterns.
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