Red-headed Woodpeckers are strikingly beautiful birds. They are in trouble. But we can help them in our yards.
Their numbers have declined 1% per yr, 54% total, since the mid-1960s. They have made it to the Yellow Watch List “for species that require constant monitoring and long-term assessment to prevent further declines.”
What are the reasons? One – loss of beech nuts and chestnuts, 2 primary food sources. These losses came as mature beech forests disappeared to development and the chestnut blight decimated chestnut trees.
Red-headed Woodpeckers are attempting to adapt by tuning in on acorn crops. Only to be faced with the declining number of oaks. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Global Tree Specialist Group’s Red List of Oaks 2020, 31% of the 430 oak species are threatened with extinction. 16 of those species are in the U.S..
Reason 2 – the loss of dead trees and snags in open oak and pine forests needed for successful nesting and brooding. Red-headed Woodpecker and oak recovery groups have started working together to better manage oak and pine forests by opening the understory with thinning and prescribed burns and leaving dead trees and branches. And like Bluebirds, Red-headed Woodpeckers will use specially designed nest boxes.
So we can help them in our own yards. Plant\replant oaks native to your region. When safe, leave snags.