[Birdtalk] RE: Lewis's Woodpecker in Weber County

[Buck Russell]

Many thanks to Kristin and her excellent directions.  My wife and I found the nest site this morning and had many great looks at the bird.  I am now fully educated on what a "truncated" tree looks like.  The bird was returning to the nest about every five minutes.  I believe that we saw the same bird doing all of the trips to the nest.  A tree about 20 feet north of Lewis Woodpecker nest has a pair of nesting House Wrens and they were maintaining the same frantic pace as the woodpecker in returning to the nest and feeding their young.  
Thanks.
Buck Russell

From: kristinpurdy at comcast.netTo: birdtalk at utahbirds.orgDate: Sun, 2 Jul 2006 11:13:15 -0600Subject: [Birdtalk] Lewis's Woodpecker in Weber County




I thought I was going to be coy this morning and post a report entitled, "A One-Woodpecker Morning". Then in addition to my target Lewis's Woodpecker, bunches of Northern Flickers and a Downy Woodpecker let me know they wouldn't be ignored. Those additional species spoiled my fun in the most pleasant way.
 
This morning I returned to the Weber County site where Glenn Barlow and I saw a Lewis's Woodpecker on Friday with the hope of locating a nest cavity. The bird is nesting in a long-dead Box Elder snag about 150 yards south of highway 39 at mile 27.1. Generally speaking, the location is 7-8 miles east of Huntsville. There's no place to park at this spot. I continued east about another tenth of a mile and pulled over across from a white mailbox with the number 13272. Then I walked back along the highway after observing the bird land on a snag. 
 
The snag is fairly easy to recognize. At the mile 27.1 location, there are many dead Box Elder trees south of the road. Some are truncated; a few are silver because they're missing bark. But the nest tree is the only one that's both truncated (no branches at all) and is silver because most of the bark is missing. The nest cavity is on the south side of the tree away from the road. 
 
After observing this woodpecker for awhile, I had second thoughts about the bird's age. On Friday, we thought it was a juvenile because it appeared dusky-dirty on the breast and we didn't see any pink. Now I believe the young haven't fledged yet and the bird is a worn adult. Here's why. The silver neck collar was dusky and not very obvious. The usually bright pink breast looked more rosy-red/dusky and I had strong eastern light. Our light conditions weren't as good on Friday. I saw only one woodpecker during today's 1-1 1/2 hours of observation, and it entered the cavity almost all the way each time it returned with a beakful of bugs. 
 
I drew a couple conclusions from this behavior. First and most obviously, the young haven't fledged yet. Second, the young are still small enough that one of the adults needs to remain with them, and third, they're so small that the feeding adult must enter the cavity to feed them. In my experience, young woodpeckers are very noisy and clamber at the entrance to the nest hole for the best spot and first chance at the food just before fledging. Never did I see or hear any activity at the entrance to the cavity besides that of the one adult. 
 
I reviewed the Lewis's molt strategy in Cornell's BNA. The species account lists late summer into fall for a partial molt, which includes body and most flight feathers. That's a good indication to me that this adult's body feathers are worn.
 
The woodpecker was active and foraged in chokecherry shrubs in an open field, from power poles, and from fenceposts to the ground. He or she flew as far as a couple tenths of a mile east along the highway and was pretty obvious. 
 
I'm darned pleased to have a breeding Lewis's Woodpecker location in Weber County again. The Middle Fork WMA location gave out after the bird's nest snag fell a year or two ago. 
 
Other "good" species in the area this morning included Gray Catbirds and Common Nighthawks. 
 
Kris
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