Acorn Woodpecker - BirdForum Opus

Photo © by digishooter
Wofford Heights, Kern Co., California, USA, December 2014

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

Female
Photo © by bobsofpa
Madera Canyon, Arizona, USA, May 2005

Western United States, Mexico, and northern Central America. Subspecies flavigula is a common bird in the Western Andes of Colombia.

Taxonomy

Subspecies angustifrons
Photo © by Thomas P Brown
Serris De Lagoona, BCS Mexico, March 2016

This is a polytypic species^[1] consisting of 7 subspecies:

Subspecies

Flight
Photo © by Stanley Jones
Davis Mountains State Park, Fort Davis
Jeff Davis County, Texas, 14 September 2021

• 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:

• Southern Mexico (e Chiapas) to north-eastern Guatemala and Belize

• M. f. lineatus:

• Southern Mexico (Chiapas) to Guatemala and northern Nicaragua

• M. f. striatipectus:

• Nicaragua to western Panama

• 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

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.

Gallery

Click on photo for larger image

• 

  Acorn Woodpecker storage tree
  Photo © by Stanley Jones
  Santa Catalina Natural Area, Tucson, Pima County, Arizona, USA, July 1981

• 

  Photo © by marcsantacurz
  Quail Hollow Ranch County Park, Ben Lomond, California, April 2012

References

1. Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, S. M. Billerman, T. A. Fredericks, J. A. Gerbracht, D. Lepage, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2021. The eBird/Clements checklist of Birds of the World: v2021. Downloaded from https://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
2. Koenig, W. D., E. L. Walters, P. B. Stacey, M. T. Stanback, and R. L. Mumme (2020). Acorn Woodpecker (Melanerpes formicivorus), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (P. G. Rodewald and B. K. Keeney, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.acowoo.01
3. bird-friends.com
4. BF Member observations

• List of references

Recommended Citation

• BirdForum Opus contributors. (2024) Acorn Woodpecker. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 9 October 2024 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Acorn_Woodpecker

External Links

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