Now that is just too cool for school!! WOW. So interesting, and such a neat looking bird. I just read that they adore digging seeds from pine cones. Thanks so much for sharing.~~Angie

Very beautiful and unusual!!! How cool to be able to do that for a project. I admire you for knowing what you want to do.

How interesting! That is a beautiful bird, as well as a beautiful natural area.

How do you catch the birds? Does that cause them stress?

Hi all,

We trap the birds at the nest cavity when the young are 10 days or older as they can then thermoregulate without the adults needing to brood them. We put a mist-net up in front of the cavity and catch the birds as they return to feed the young, or if they bypass the net on their way to the cavity, we catch them when we leave. The whole process from capture, to recording data (body measurements including bill length, ageing, and wing length) to banding takes about 15-20 minutes. The bird is released and we try not to trap both adults on the same day to reduce stress. So far, the process is going well and the birds resume their normal behavior (feeding the young) very soon.

This information we are collecting will be vital to determine how well these birds are doing in managed timber stands, since they are usually thought to need old-growth trees to do well. My work is showing that they reproduce well in managed stands with small diameter trees (70% nest success), now we need to know how well they are surviving (particularly over the winter) and what their home range sizes are. All this information will allow us and other land managers to better manage habitat for this ponderosa pine dependent species in Washington.

I feel very lucky to be able to do for a living what I love to do. Not many people in the natural resources field can say that. I am fortunate and feel blessed, and cross my fingers I can contiue what I love to do.

BN

Wow, how cool! What a beautiful bird. You are so very lucky to be able to do what you love for a living. Those of us who love birds and want to protect them thank you.

BN - very cool! More questions - how do you find the nests? Are they high off the ground? Don't they need snags or dead wood to nest, which I would think are not so common in a managed forest?

Yes, they do nest in snags, although occassionally in dead sections of a live tree. White-headed Woodpeckers are relatively weak excavators, so they need well-decayed snags to excavate a cavity. Thus, they like to use snags where the top has broken off so the cavities are usually below 3 m in height which makes it easier for trapping. We have a few cavities that are less than 3 feet high! That could say something about managed stands, not a lot of large tall snags for them to use. Often, they use old stumps from timber harvests. Of course, that puts them into jeopardy of getting predated by bears. But so far, they are doing okay at least reproductively.

I find the nests by following the adults in early spring. I monitor many of the same territories from year to year so I have an idea of where they like to hang out. About mid-May, I start following them in earnest because that is peak time for cavity excavation. If I am lucky, the adult I follow while they forage will eventually lead me back to the cavity when they take turns excavating with the other sex. If that doesn't work, I simply start searching snags in their territory and look for signs of fresh excavating..chips on the ground. If that doesn't work, I wait until they are nesting and try to follow adults as they return to the cavity to incubate or feed the young. Sometimes, all that doesn't even work and they elude me...but not often. :-)

We trapped two more males today and put transmitters on them and trapped another male at another nest and just color-banded him as the other researcher wants to put a transmitter on the female on that territory. She will go back later in the week to trap the females of those three pairs...that way we aren't trapping both birds on the same day and stressing them both out. That way, one bird isn't handled and can feed/brood the chicks while the other adult "recovers" from the trapping process.

I will try to post more pics this weekend from the trapping and also of some nest snags so people can see what they use. Those are all on my work computer.

BN

Those really cool snaps of white headed Woodpeaker. I enjoy by seeing these picture.

So, here are some more pictures I took this week of the process of affixing the transmitters to the tail.

First, this shows the central tail feather separated from all the others by a card so that the glue doesn't accidently get on any other feathers. The bird is placed in a contraption that consists of 2 tomato paste cans glued end to end, with holes punched in the closed end, and the bird is placed in the cans head first. The birds is also wrapped in a cloth sleeve to protect it from the insides of the cans. You can see the transmitter being held onto the shaft of the tail feather as the glue dries.

Here you can see the transmitter being further tied onto the feather shaft.

Finally, the trasmitter finished and ready to go.

Here we have a view of the bird as it is removed from the can to get ready for release. I snapped the pic as his nictating membrane closed...he isn't sleeping or dead! You can also see the metal ID band and one color band on his left leg.

And here we have the bird being held in the "banders hold" which secures the bird but allows the wings, beak and legs to be manipulated during banding and measuring. Males, as seen here, have a bright red patch on the head whereas females do not. This bird was aged by molt patterns on the wing to be at least 3 years old.

Thanks for looking!

BN