While hiking in Madera Canyon in Arizona, I spotted this female Acorn Woodpecker. She had flown to the nest hole with food in her bill, and had put her head in the hole several times, as if feeding young, but I never saw the babies. The tree trunk appears to have been well used by these birds. You can tell that this is a female, because of the black band on the forehead--if it were a male, the red patch would come further forward, with the white facial markings meeting the red. 9/16/19 Judith Sparhawk
This is a male Nuttall's Woodpecker that nested in a local park here a few years ago. This species is the local counterpart to the Ladder-backed WP that Wayne posted a couple of days ago. The Ladder-back lives in the desert environments, with the Nuttall's living in local mountains , inland, and coastal California. It has more black on its face, extensive black on its neck, and narrower white stripes on its back. The two photos on the right were taken during the time the male was pecking out the nest hole. You can see that he had to go through some gymnastics as the hole got deeper. The one on the left was after the young were hatched and he had gone in to feed them, and was looking out before leaving the nest. You can see the passage of time by how the budding branches had leafed out by the time this shot was taken. 9/23/19 Judith Sparhawk
This is a different Acorn Woodpecker from the one I posted yesterday. So many people said they had never heard of this type of food storage by woodpeckers, I decided to show one of the larger acorn "grocery stores" at the park I visited the other day. When I first arrived at the park there were 4 or 5 of these woodpeckers working on the storage system. I zoomed in on this one, holding an acorn in her bill, maybe contemplating where this one will go. It is a female, based on the black bar across her forehead, in front of the red cap. The bird isn't as sharp in this shot as in yesterday's, but it is a good example of the acorn storage. Trees like this are used year after year, and the acorns are used for food in seasons when fresh ones are not available. Imagine the work that went into making all the holes and fitting the acorns into them. I understand that as the acorns dry, they become loose, and they are often moved from one hole to another to assure a snug fit; thus they are constantly being worked on. 10/22/20 My website: www.sparhawkphotography.com
