40 Fun Facts About Red-Headed Woodpecker

Which insects do red-headed woodpeckers store alive, wedged into crevices so tightly that they cannot escape?

Grasshoppers are kept as a living larder: the birds jam them into cracks in fenceposts and trees, then come back to eat them later.

Which nickname has the red-headed woodpecker earned for its crimson head, snow-white body and half-black wings?

Flying checkerboard is the label its blocks of solid colour have earned, and they make it one of the most easily recognised birds in eastern North America.

In which Longfellow epic does a grateful hero give the red-headed woodpecker its crimson head?

The Song of Hiawatha has its hero dip the bird's head in the blood of the magician Pearl-Feather as thanks for its service.

Which invasive bird, released in New York in 1890, competes with the red-headed woodpecker for nest holes?

The European starling competes for the same cavities, one reason given for the native bird's long decline. Its American story began with a release in Central Park.

Courting red-headed woodpeckers dodge around stumps and telephone poles in what looks like which children's game?

Hide and seek around dead stumps and poles is how prospective mates court, and once paired they may stay together for several years.

Which tree killer, along with chestnut blight, handed red-headed woodpeckers a boom in dead trees to nest in?

Dutch elm disease devastated trees in the twentieth century, yet every dead trunk meant fresh nest sites and foraging for the woodpeckers.

Red-headed woodpeckers eat the fruits of which plant, notorious for giving people an itchy rash?

Poison ivy fruits are on the menu along with apples, pears, grapes and mulberries; about two-thirds of the bird's diet is plant material.

Red-headed woodpeckers often nest in smooth, bare snags, a surface thought to deter which predators?

Snakes may be put off by the smooth trunk of a long-dead tree, and the woodpeckers often reuse such a nest hole for several years.

In the mid-twentieth century, red-headed woodpeckers hunting insects along roadsides were commonly killed by what?

Passing cars hit so many of the low-swooping birds that road traffic is counted among the reasons for the species' decline.

Territorial red-headed woodpeckers have been known to enter the nest boxes of which birds and puncture the eggs?

Ducks get no protection from their size: the woodpeckers also remove other species' eggs and wreck rival nests inside their territory.

Which Scottish-born 'Father of American Ornithology' was inspired to study birds by the red-headed woodpecker?

Alexander Wilson, once a weaver and poet in Paisley, went on to write the nine-volume American Ornithology after this bird caught his eye.

In 1840 Audubon reported 100 red-headed woodpeckers shot in a single day from one tree of which fruit?

Cherry trees were not the only draw: the birds were so common that orchard owners and farmers used to pay a bounty for them.

What colour is the head of a juvenile red-headed woodpecker before its adult crimson feathers grow in?

Gray-brown heads set the youngsters apart, and birds moulting into adult plumage can show a patchwork of the two colours.

Which high-fat feeder food is most likely to tempt a red-headed woodpecker into a garden in winter?

Suet is what brings them to winter feeders, though they also take seeds, corn, pecans and many kinds of fruit.

Which mountain range forms the western edge of the red-headed woodpecker's range across North America?

The Rockies bound the species to the west, and from there it ranges east to the Atlantic and south to the Gulf of Mexico.

The red-headed woodpecker breeds in the east-central United States and which other country?

Canada holds the northern limit of the range, where the bird breeds in open country along the country's southern edge.

At what time does the male red-headed woodpecker take over from the female to incubate the eggs?

At night the male sits on the eggs, while the female takes the daytime shift for the two weeks until they hatch.

What do red-headed woodpecker parents do to fledglings still lingering in the territory after a few weeks?

They chase them off, which is less harsh than it sounds: the young fly well and can catch their own food soon after leaving the nest.

What does a red-headed woodpecker do when a nut is too big for the crevice chosen to store it?

It breaks the nut up rather than reshaping the hole: these birds store food in ready-made cracks instead of digging their own.

Which Native American nation of the Southeast used the red-headed woodpecker as a symbol of war?

Cherokee people made the bird a war symbol, and it suits the part: it attacks rival nests and takes on birds far bigger than itself.

Which Swedish naturalist gave the red-headed woodpecker its scientific species name in 1758?

Carl Linnaeus named it Picus erythrocephalus in the tenth edition of Systema Naturae, joining Greek words for red and head.

Which English naturalist described and illustrated the red-headed woodpecker in a book published from 1729?

Mark Catesby pictured it in his Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands, the first published account of North America's flora and fauna.

The genus name Melanerpes, coined for the red-headed woodpecker, joins two Greek words meaning what?

Black creeper is the literal sense, from the Greek melas and herpēs, a fair label for an inky-backed bird that climbs tree trunks.

Fossils of the red-headed woodpecker found in Florida, Virginia and Illinois date from which geological epoch?

Pleistocene fossils up to two million years old show the species was already around through the ice ages.

In 2018 the IUCN moved the red-headed woodpecker out of its Near Threatened category and into which one?

Least Concern was restored after numbers appeared to stabilise, a change credited in part to better habitat management.

The red-headed woodpecker belongs to which bird family, shared with the sapsuckers and flickers?

Picidae is the woodpecker family, placed in the order Piciformes, and its members dig the holes that many other birds later nest in.

Which wood preservative in newer utility poles may explain why red-headed woodpecker eggs laid there failed to hatch?

Creosote was the suspect in a study where eggs did not hatch and young did not fledge in poles only three or four years old.

The nest cavity a red-headed woodpecker digs, often starting from a crack, is said to have the shape of what?

A gourd is the usual comparison: an entrance about two inches wide opens into a roomier chamber that takes around two weeks to dig.

How does a female red-headed woodpecker appear to signal approval of a possible nest site?

By tapping on it, she seems to give her verdict; the hole may be a new one dug mostly by her mate or simply his old winter roost.

Red-headed woodpeckers now seem to follow the supply of which nuts more than the beechnuts they once tracked?

Acorns steer the birds' wanderings: a wood can be busy with them one winter and empty the next, depending on the crop.

The red-headed woodpecker is the only North American woodpecker known to do what with the food it stores?

Cover it with bark or wood: the bird seals its hoard out of sight, something no other food-storing woodpecker on the continent is known to do.

Under which part of a house do red-headed woodpeckers sometimes wedge food they are saving for later?

Roof shingles serve as a pantry alongside fenceposts and tree crevices, and the birds often shift an item from place to place before eating it.

Red-headed woodpeckers readily pick fights with which much larger, crow-sized woodpecker with a red crest?

Pileated woodpeckers dwarf it, yet the red-headed woodpecker is quick to start a quarrel with them and with many other bird species.

Conservationists call the red-headed woodpecker the poster child of which open, fire-maintained wooded habitat?

Savanna woodland kept open by thinning and controlled burns is what the species needs, so restoring it sits at the heart of plans to bring the bird back.

In 1996 a perched red-headed woodpecker appeared on which everyday item sold across the United States?

A postage stamp worth two cents carried the bird, and the design was reissued in 1999 and stayed on sale until 2006.

Which similar-sized woodpecker with an orange-red crown and nape is most often confused with the red-headed woodpecker?

Red-bellied woodpeckers have a black-and-white barred back and take their name from a faint reddish blush on the lower belly.

Which woodpecker of the American West is the red-headed woodpecker's closest rival at catching insects in flight?

Lewis's woodpecker is the only real competition: both species launch from a perch to snatch insects in midair, flycatcher style.

Compared with most other woodpeckers, how is the flight of the red-headed woodpecker usually described?

Fairly level and strong, it is the flight of a bird that spends much of its time snatching insects out of the air.

Which small nocturnal mammals are named among the red-headed woodpecker's predators, alongside foxes and hawks?

Flying squirrels share the predator list with peregrine falcons and eastern screech-owls.

Which of these is an old nickname for the red-headed woodpecker, alongside flag bird and shirt-tail bird?

Jellycoat sits on a long list of folk names inspired by the bold plumage, including half-a-shirt and patriotic bird.