The clown-faced Acorn Woodpecker is a common bird of western oak forests. It lives in extended family groups, and all members of the group spend hours and hours storing thousands of acorns in carefully tended holes in trees and telephone poles.It is a common, medium-sized woodpecker with a black back and chest. The head is black, white, and red. The black in the face surrounds a white eye. The belly and rump are white but with black streaks extending from the chest into the belly. The white patch in the wings is obvious in flight. The sexes are similar but the male has a solid red crown while the female has a black band between the forehead and red. The most common call is a loud "waka-waka-waka."The Acorn Woodpecker has a very complicated social system. Family groups hold territories, and young woodpeckers stay with their parents for several years and help the parents raise more young. Several different individuals of each sex may breed within one family, with up to seven breeding males and three breeding females in one group. All members of an Acorn Woodpecker group spend large amounts of time storing acorns. Acorns typically are stored in holes drilled into a single tree, called a granary tree. One granary tree may have up to 50,000 holes in it, each of which is filled with an acorn in autumn. The Acorn Woodpecker will use human-made structures to store acorns, drilling holes in fence posts, utility poles, buildings, and even automobile radiators. Occasionally the woodpecker will put acorns into places where it cannot get them out. Woodpeckers put 220 kg (485 lb) of acorns into a wooden water tank in Arizona. In parts of its range the Acorn Woodpecker does not construct a granary tree, but instead stores acorns in natural holes and cracks in bark. If the stores are eaten, the woodpecker will move to another area, even going from Arizona to Mexico to spend the winter.(Cornell Lab of Ornithology. All About Birds (Online)). |
