Scientific classification:

Kingdom: Animalia | Phylum: Chordata | Class: Aves
Order: Piciformes | Family: Picidae | Genus: Picoides | Species: P. borealis
Binomial name: Picoides borealis

About the size of the Northern Cardinal, the Red-cockaded Woodpecker (Picoides borealis) is approximately 20-22 cm long, with a wingspan of about 35 cm. Its back is barred with black and white horizontal stripes.

The Red-cockaded Woodpecker's most distinguishing feature is a black cap and nape that encircle large white cheek patches. Rarely visible, except perhaps during the breeding season and periods of territorial defense, the male has a small red streak on each side of its black cap called a cockade, hence its name. The Red-cockaded Woodpecker feeds primarily on ants, beetles, cockroaches, caterpillars, wood-boring insects, and spiders, and occasionally fruit and berries.

Reproduction and development

Red-cockaded Woodpeckers are a territorial, nonmigratory, cooperative breeding species, frequently having the same mate for several years.The nesting season lasts from April to June. The breeding female lays three to four eggs in the breeding male's roost cavity. Group members incubate the small white eggs for 10-12 days. Once hatched, the nestlings remain in the nest cavity for about 26 days. Upon fledging, the young often remain with the parents, forming groups of up to nine members, but more typically three to four members. There is only one pair of breeding birds within each group, and they normally only raise a single brood each year. The other group members, called helpers, usually males from the previous breeding season, help incubate the eggs and raise the young. Juvenile females generally leave the group before the next breeding season, in search of solitary male groups.

Range and population level

Historically, this woodpecker's range extended in the southeastern United States from Florida to New Jersey and Maryland, as far west as eastern Texas and Oklahoma, and inland to Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Today it is estimated that there are about 5,000 groups of red-cockaded woodpeckers, or 12,500 birds, from Florida to Virginia and west to southeast Oklahoma and eastern Texas, representing about 1 % of the woodpecker's original population. They have become extinct-(extirpated), in New Jersey, Maryland, and Missouri.

<< Previous