Woodpeckers in the Garden

Melanerpes pucherani
Black-cheeked Woodpecker

Or Carpenterio carinegros, as the locals along this Caribbean coastline call them. Whatever the name, they are resident birds found from SE Mexico to Ecuador.

So it was not unsual that I should have spotted one the other day. My husband and I were sitting on our front porch, which overlooks an open pasture in the jungle, and I saw a bird popping along up the trunk of an old, dying coconut palm. Because we have so many birds here we always have a set of binoculars at the ready as well as our spotting scope.

It took a bit to identify the little guy as there are many woodpeckers that migrate through on their way to Columbia and other South American countries. The Acorn Woodpecker, for instance, ranges from the United States to Columbia and The Hairy Woodpecker breeds in Alaska and northern Canada and travels to the Bahamas and Panama. But it is June so I suspect that most of the northerly-inclined species are busy making babies somewhere far from here.

The Black-cheeked Woodpecker is a quite lovely. Its red crest feathers flare up when it is intent and looking for insects, its beady coal-black eye intent on the mission at hand. A sturdy black chisel-like beak is used for that incessant hammering from whence they get their name. Its wings are barred black and it has a spot of white over and behind the eye. A soft buff colored underbelly is barred and resembles a tiny washboard strapped to their chest. It was the distinctive red stripe down the center of its belly that identified it for us. No other neotropical woodpecker has the red underbelly.

As it moved along the trunk of the palm we could see through the scope that it was feeding on a termite trail that ran along the trunk like a small river of sand. The woodpecker only had to make a few stabs at the trail casing and then with a surprisingly long tongue, also used to drink nectar from flowers of the balsa and kapok trees, it licked up the termites. It spent a good deal of time poking about in the crevices and cracks, probing for beetles and grubs that were also feeding off the dying tree.

I have been reading Living on the Wind: Across the Hemisphere With Migratory Birds, by Scott Weidensaul, and have been amazed at the discoveries that scientists have made with regard to the migratory status of many species of birds that were thought, not too long ago, to be “residents.” It turns out that most birds are always on the move and will change their diets depending on the time of year and abundance of certain proteins, moving with the food supply. So, whether they migrate across the world or across the country, most birds are always on the move.

The woodpecker I saw the other day is probably nesting right now. We saw the excavated hole––a no nonsense rectangular affair––high up in the palm, and the bird made several trips up there bobbing forward repeatedly into the hole. No way to know for certain as the little ones keep well out of sight to avoid being taken by a Collared Aracari or a Keel-billed Toucan that also reside here in large numbers.

According to my Guide to Birds of Costa Rica, by Stiles and Skutch, the female lays between 2-4 eggs pure white eggs per hatch that both parents incubate. The eggs hatch at 14 days and young fledge in about 21 days. I will continue to watch the hole in the palm tree to see when they emerge, and I wish them well. The Black-cheeked woodpecker is not endangered, but many others are.

As of 2001 these species of woodpeckers were either critically endangered or threatened:

Imperial Woodpecker––Critical

Ivory-billed Woodpecker––Critical

Cuban Flicker (Fernadina’s)––Endangered

Okinawa Woodpecker ––Critical

Knysna Woodpecker––Near Threatened

Stierling’s Woodpecker––Near Threatened

Olive-backed Woodpecker––Near Threatened

Andaman Woodpecker–– Near Threatened

Black-bodied Woodpecker––Near Threatened

Yellow-browed Woodpecker––Near Threatened

Tawny Piculet––Near Threatened

Rusty-necked Piculet––Near Threatened

Mottled Piculet––Near Threatened

Helmeted Woodpecker––Vulnerable

Red-cockaded Woodpecker––Vulnerable

Ochraceous Piculet––Vulnerable

Speckle-chested Piculet––Vulnerable

Red-cockaded Woodpecker Endangered

The Ivory-bill and Imperial woodpeckers were thought to be extinct, but in April 2005 an Ivory-billed woodpecker was spotted in Arkansas, the first sighting in 60 years. Still, In the last 30 years the two largest species of woodpeckers have been all but lost.

And in case you didn’t know, according to Wikipedia :

Peckerwood (or simply Wood) is a pejorative slang term coined in the 19th century by southern black Americans to describe poor whites. Blacks saw blackbirds as a symbol of themselves, and the woodpecker as a representation of working class whites. They considered them loud and troublesome like the bird, often with red hair similar to the bird’s red plumes. This word is still widely used by southern blacks to refer to southern whites.