12/18/2023 0 Comments Acorn woodpeckerIn the spring, acorn woodpeckers have their choice of food. They dive-bomb squirrels," said Kate Marianchild, author of the book "Secrets of the Oak Woodlands." An acorn woodpecker fed on an insect in April. The holes usually start a few feet up the tree trunks, which makes it easier for the woodpeckers to defend their acorns from deer, squirrels and jays. “The point of storing the acorns is that it protects them from other animals getting them and it allows them to dry out.” “They don’t want sap in the hole because it will cause the acorn to rot,” said Koenig. The birds bore only into the bark, where there’s no sap, or they make their granaries in snags. Woodpeckers have drilled thousands of holes into these redwoods around Lake Lagunitas in Marin County. “Those trees are going to be close together.”Īcorn woodpeckers make their granaries in pines, oaks, sycamores, redwoods and even in the palm trees on the Stanford University campus. “They’ll usually have a central granary, maybe two trees that a group is using,” Koenig said. These avian performers are constantly tapping, drilling and pounding at their granaries. An acorn woodpecker pounds an acorn into a hole. Outside California they’re found in Oregon, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, and south to Colombia. They’re also easy to see in San Jose's Plaza de Cesar Chavez. Marin and Contra Costa counties are good places to spot them. They greet each other with loud cries that sound like “waka-waka-waka.” They don’t mind people staring at them and they’re easy to find. In spring and summer, hikers in the Bay Area commonly see acorn woodpeckers while the birds feed their chicks and care for their granaries. This sets them apart from other birds that drop acorns into already-existing cavities in trees, and animals like squirrels and jays that bury acorns in the ground. Over generations, acorn woodpeckers can drill thousands of small holes into one or several trees close to each other, giving these so-called granaries the appearance of Swiss cheese. Storing acorns high up in the trees helps the woodpeckers protect them from squirrels, deer and jays. “They’re the only animals that I know of that store their acorns individually in holes in trees,” said biologist Walter Koenig, of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, who has studied acorn woodpeckers for decades at the University of California’s Hastings Natural History Reservation in Carmel Valley. Acorn woodpeckers have drilled thousands of holes in these redwoods on the shore of Lake Lagunitas in Marin County. In the case of acorn woodpeckers - gregarious black-and-red birds in California’s oak forests - they’re building an intricate pantry, a massive, well-organized stockpile of thousands of acorns to carry them through the winter. Have you ever wondered why woodpeckers pound so incessantly?
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |