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Red Cockaded Woodpecker (Picoides borealis)
Physical Description:
• 8" in length with 15" wingspan
• White cheek patches and black cap and nape
• Dark with gray netlike markings on its back
• Black and white horizontal stripes on back
Range:
• Historically found from New Jersey to Florida, west to Oklahoma and Texas and inland to Missouri and Kentucky.
Habitat Description:
• Require old, living pine trees to excavate nesting and roosting cavities
• Family groups require an average of 200 acres of mature open, pine forest
Feeding:
• Feeds primarily on insects (e.g., beetles, spider, ants, roaches, etc.) secondary on soft mast (fruits and berries).
• Can often been seen scaling up and down tree trunk flaking/gleening bark in search of insects.
Breeding:
• Form family groups that assist in cooperative breeding of young, i.e., one breeding pair and 1 to 3 adult male offspring.
• Female lays 3 to 4 eggs in breeding male's nest cavity.
• Group members help incubate eggs for 10 - 12 days
• Altricial young remain in cavity about about 26 days.
Interesting trivia:
• Only woodpecker in North America that excavates its cavity in a living pine tree.
• Will create several cavities in one area (called a cluster) in which the family group lives.
• Chips holes around each cavity entrance that causes resin to bleed down the face of the tree; which helps to ward off the main nest predator- the grey rat snake.
Status:
• Federally Endangered
Causes for decline:
• Loss of mature pine forests through forestry practices, agricultural and urban sprawl
• Fire suppression that degrades open forest conditions