By Don Lyman
The Boston Globe, March 29, 2019
On a cold, mid-March morning, I heard a sign of spring echo across the frigid suburban landscape: a lone woodpecker drumming on a tree. The rapid succession of persistent, rhythmic tapping continued on and off in short bursts for several minutes.
Increasing temperatures and light prompt male woodpeckers to start loud drumming in March and April, said Wayne Petersen, Mass Audubon’s Director of Important Bird Areas.
Right: A pileated woodpecker was seen at the Mass Audubon headquarters in Lincoln in 2017. The pileated is the largest woodpecker in the state.DAN BROWN/MASS AUDUBON/MASS AUDOBON
“It’s analogous to singing in songbirds,” he said. “The males are advertising for females, and letting other woodpeckers know it’s their territory. Woodpeckers are not as animated with their drumming when they’re just using their beaks to look for food.”
Downy, red-bellied, and hairy woodpeckers are the most common species in suburban areas, and are year-round residents in Massachusetts, Petersen said. Pileated woodpeckers, which are about 16 inches long, are the largest woodpeckers in Massachusetts, and also permanent residents, but tend to be found in more heavily forested areas. Downy woodpeckers are the smallest, at about 7 inches in length. Northern flickers, red-headed woodpeckers, and yellow-bellied sapsuckers are migratory, but breed regularly in Massachusetts.
Woodpeckers tend to nest in late spring, and are primary cavity nesters, which means they excavate their own nesting holes in trees, and usually use a new hole each year, Petersen said. Some other bird species, known as secondary cavity nesters, will use old woodpecker holes for their nests. A Mass Wildlife web page says abandoned woodpecker cavities may provide nest sites and shelter for animals such as bluebirds, owls and flying squirrels. Woodpeckers have white eggs, which are characteristic of birds that nest in holes, as they are more visible to the adult birds, Petersen said. They usually have about four or five young, which are often fed by regurgitation. “It’s not uncommon to see multiple babies sticking their heads out of the nest hole,” said Petersen. “There’s not a lot of room in the nest cavities, so the babies are really stuffed in there.”
Baby woodpeckers are noisy because their nest is inside of trees, so there’s not as much danger from predators, said Petersen. But, if a predator does show up at a nest hole, that’s a problem, because it’s hard for the woodpeckers to escape. Tree-climbing predators such as fishers, raccoons, and even some snakes, like black racers and milk snakes, will feed on woodpecker eggs and young if they find the nest hole. Birds of prey, like Cooper’s hawks and Peregrine falcons, will sometimes prey on adult woodpeckers.
Above: This northern flicker was spotted in the Bower Springs Conservation Area in Bolton last May. NICK TEPPER
Woodpeckers are designed to feed on insects, said Petersen, and their hard, chisel-like bills help them penetrate the bark of trees as they search for beetle grubs and other bugs and larvae. Woodpeckers have stiff, rigid tail feathers, and zygodactylous feet, with two toes facing forward and two facing back, as opposed to most other birds, which have three toes in the front and one in the back. “The toes and tail help give them purchase,” said Petersen. “The stiff, rigid feathers let them lean back on the tail on a tree trunk, which helps support them, like a lineman working on a telephone pole.” Woodpeckers’ skulls are cushioned with special tissue that absorbs the shock of hammering on tree trunks, and helps prevent injury to the brain, said Petersen. They also have long tongues, which wind inside the head, behind the brain in the cranial cavity. Their tongues have barbs on the end, which help them spear insects.
“When excavating grubs they unwind their tongue, like throwing a harpoon, then reel it back into their mouth,” said Petersen. Flickers, unlike most woodpeckers, tend to forage on the ground, said Petersen, because they eat a lot of ants, using their long tongues to snap them up. Pileated woodpeckers tend to eat mainly carpenter ants that they excavate from trees. One of the most unusual woodpecker feeding habits is that of the yellow-bellied sapsucker. “They excavate little holes in a linear pattern on the bark of apple trees, cherry trees, etc. — trees with a lot of sap,” Petersen said. “The trees ooze sap, which attracts insects, and the sapsuckers eat the sap and the insects.” Other birds, such as warblers, which eat insects, and orioles, which like sap, also will visit sapsucker trees, said Petersen. In late summer and fall, Mass Audubon gets lots of calls about woodpeckers hammering on houses. “They are probably young of the year,” said Petersen, “driven out of their natal territories, trying to excavate their own roost hole to sleep in at night, and to use through the winter.” He said they’ll usually go away on their own, but if they don’t, Mass Audubon tells people to use shiny mylar balloons, or strips of mylar, tacked to the house. “The wind blows it and makes it like a scarecrow,” said Petersen, “and scares the woodpeckers away.”
Above: A downy woodpecker was captured on camera last August in Provincetown’s Beech Forest. NICK TEPPER
Above: Here’s a northern flicker seen in Medway last year. Unlike most other woodpeckers, northern flickers feed mainly on the ground, where they eat ants. KRISTIN FORESTO/MASS AUDUBON/MASS AUDUBON
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