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On a cool October day, I was looking up into the trees. Red-headed Woodpeckers flew back and forth through the branches. Their wings flashed with black-and-white drama. They wore plush, red velvet hoods.
One woodpecker, immobile, may have been watching me. Another leaped into flight and caught an insect midair. A third flew to the limb of a dead cottonwood tree and poked half an acorn into hole in the bark.
Red-headed Woodpeckers breed throughout the Midwest. Some move south in late fall. Here in Iowa, a few stick around for the winter, although sometimes they disappear entirely during the coldest months.
But this winter we’ll have lots of Red-headed Woodpeckers, because the Pin Oaks are showering the woods with acorns.
The technical term for this abundant acorn crop is a mast year. It does not happen every year. Oak trees synchronize their acorn production, producing vast quantities of acorns in a single year and then few or none the following year or years.
Everybody loves acorns. Birds, White-tail Deer, squirrels, and even insects. In a mast year like this one, everybody in the forest eats well. Acorns are so abundant that wildlife can’t consume them all. That is the strategy of the oaks, for some acorns will get a chance to sprout and make new trees.
In winters after a poor acorn crop, Red-headed Woodpeckers leave our woods and go south. But this year they’ll stay, living on the acorns they’ve stashed away.
I saw a woodpecker return a dozen times to the same small hole, each time tucking in one acorn. Some birds popped in and out of holes in the trees. Some adults, with the red heads, seemed to be communicating with juveniles, whose heads are still brown.
From time to time all of the woodpeckers broke into chittering and rattling calls, reminiscent of tree frogs.
It looked to me as if the birds were enjoying the cool sunshine of an October afternoon. Chatting with friends and family. Enjoying the bounty of the woods.
Thanks for the insights into the lives of these splendid creatures. They have come to my bird feeders in the past though not often, and their red heads look more like Fur than feathers. I assume they will not come this winter very much at all because they have plenty of pin oak Acorns to eat. Since it is a masting year for pin oaks does that mean it's a mass year for other oak trees as well? I would imagine not since that would not be very efficient.
I loved the pictures and the recording. Thanks Diane!
Love those redheads!