Downy woodpecker just keeps going and going

Male downy woodpecker on high alert

COLUMBUS DISPATCH

January 10, 2016

NATURE
Jim McCormac

If you’re seeking a New Year’s resolution role model, consider the downy woodpecker.

Legendary ornithologist John James Audubon had this to say: “The downy woodpecker .  .  . is perhaps not surpassed by any of its tribe in hardiness, industry or vivacity.”

These traits are admirable in any organism. Having seen thousands of downy woodpeckers through the years, I will second Audubon’s effusive praise. The handsome little birds are almost always hard at work.

There are just two lapses in the workaholic woodpeckers’ toiling: when they sleep at night; and when a bird-eating raptor rudely interrupts their routine. I made the accompanying photo just after a small falcon known as a merlin entered the area. The woodpecker skittered to the side of the trunk opposite the raptor and froze stiff until the predator departed.

If one stumbled upon downy woodpeckers during their courting, one might think the birds are clownish. An amorous pair hops stiffly about, feathers rigidly ruffled, peeking at one another from behind limbs and making aggressive lunges. They might then engage in the “butterfly flight,” which must be seen to be believed. Usually tree-bound, the birds flutter through forest gaps, wings held high over their bodies and flapping with shallow delicate strokes. The gauzy flight display suggests aerial synchronized swimming.

Courtship antics lead to mating and, ultimately, the production of little woodpeckers. Downy woodpeckers excavate a small nest cavity, typically in a dead snag well off the ground. The female lays up to eight eggs, which she incubates for about 12 days. Eighteen days after hatching, the young depart the nest.

Old nestholes are used by many other cavity-dwellers, including chickadees, titmice and house wrens.

The downy woodpecker’s range stretches throughout the United States and Canada, from the wildest Alaskan forests to urban Columbus. It is the most common and successful woodpecker in North America, with a population estimated at 14 million birds.

Almost all who feed birds are familiar with the downy woodpecker. The industrious bird is quick to seize on an easy food source. It favors suet but will take seeds of all types.

Most of the downy’s livelihood, however, comes from drilling into woody trunks and limbs for beetle larvae and other succulent entomological fare.

A peculiar dietary quirk is a fondness for goldenrod gall fly larvae. The larvae are embedded in golf ball-like growths on goldenrod stems, and the woodpeckers expend considerable effort extracting the juicy grubs.

Observers can be confused by a similar species, the hairy woodpecker. The hairy is larger and stouter than the downy — think Arnold Schwarzenegger versus Richard Simmons. It also has a much more massive bill and lacks black dots on the white outer tail feathers. Like the downy, the male hairy woodpecker has a crimson splotch on the back of the head.

Tack some suet to a tree and welcome the hardest-working woodpecker in the grove into your yard.


Naturalist Jim McCormac writes a column for The Dispatch on the first, third and fifth Sundays of the month. He also writes about nature at  http://www.jimmccormac.blogspot.com/

Woodpecker sleeking, sparrow seeding

As chance would have it, my route yesterday took me (somewhat) near the legendary Sandy Ridge Reservation in Lorain County (a Lorain County Metro Park). Scores of notable birds have been seen here over the years, in large part because of the reservation's sharp-eyed and knowledgeable naturalist, Tim Fairweather. A two mile long path cuts through mature woods then circles some large wetlands. I had only been to the nature center once or twice to give talks, and had never seen the real meat of the park. Time to correct that, so I grabbed some camera gear and took to the loop trail to see what I could see.

I had barely broke free from the woods when a distant menacing shape caught my eye. There, perched on a snag in a dead tree out in the wetland, was a Merlin. These muscular little falcons are among a small bird's worst enemies; feathered Freddie Kruegers. I had scarcely registered the Merlin when the male Downy Woodpecker in this photo bounded in low over the marsh and swooped up into a nearby tree. It apparently had been out working the drowned snags, and the Merlin came in too close for comfort. The woodpecker pressed itself to the trunk, and remained quite still for several minutes. In the photo, it is casting a glance backwards in the direction of the predator. Shortly after the Merlin departed, the woodpecker skedaddled to somewhere else.

Such uncharacteristically frozen postures are sometimes adopted by songbirds and other small birds such as this woodpecker when avian predators are close at hand. You've perhaps seen chickadees or other feeder birds do it when a Cooper's Hawk barrels into the backyard. I have heard this behavior termed "sleeking", as the potential victim presses its feathers down and attempts to become one with its surroundings. It's probably not the best descriptive word for this, but I've always liked the sound of it.

 

Towards the end of the loop around the large wetland, I encountered a small flock of American Tree Sparrows. Their airy crystalline tinkling notes gave them away well before I got near, and I was prepared to try for some imagery. If I were ever forced to name a Top 10 list of favorite birds, this species would be on it. And one can never have too many photos of a Top 10 favorite bird, especially one as delicately stunning as this.

 

The animals were not put off by my furtive skulking, and I was able to observe some of their food choices. I was pleased indeed when the sparrow in the photo alit atop this old withered inflorescence of blue vervain, Verbena hastata. My first reaction was to the pleasing aesthetics of the situation, but became more meaningful when the bird began avidly ripping seeds from the candelabra of cylindrical flower (now fruit) spikes. This was not a plant that I've observed American Tree Sparrows feasting upon before.

 

American Tree Sparrows, when they arrive at these southerly latitudes for the winter (I've written more about this species HERE), are much tied to open meadows that grow a diversity of herbaceous plants that produce bumper crops of small seeds. Goldenrods are especially favored, but the sparrows feed on a wide variety of other plants, especially those in the sunflower family (Asteraceae). Over the long haul, I am sure these plucky little sparrows are major dispersers of many of these plants.

 

Unfortunately, prime American Tree Sparrow (and many other songbirds) foraging fields are all too often thought of as weed fields. While nearly everyone gets up in arms over protecting bogs, old-growth forests, and prairies, the much more mundane goldenrod and aster-dominated meadows are shrinking away, the victims of various development. These common and largely ignored meadows are biodiversity factories, and even fuel topnotch beauties such as the American Tree Sparrow.