Red-cockaded Woodpecker

(Picoides borealis)

Date of Listing: Endangered, 1970

© Photo courtesy John
and Karen Hollingsworth, USFWS

Red-cockaded Woodpeckers sleep (roost) and nest in cavities (holes) of live pine trees. Cavities are built only in large, old pines. These woodpeckers live in family groups which may include the male and female, their chicks, and young adult "helpers". These "helpers", typically related young from previous nesting seasons, help build cavities and care for the future chicks. Pecking a cavity in a live tree takes a long time, since the wood is very hard. The birds peck the bark around the entrance to get the sap (resin) flowing around the hole. The sticky sap keeps predators like snakes away from the nest cavity.

Note: Special thanks to the photographers for providing images of Texas endangered and threatened animals. All rights to these images are reserved. Educational use permitted.

Red-cockaded Woodpeckers are endangered because the open forests with big, old pine trees have been replaced by forests with younger, smaller pines. Also, periodic natural fires, which historically kept the pinewoods open, have been suppressed since settlement. Periodic fire is needed to control the brushy understory and keep the pinewoods open.

Size:

8 inches long.

Diet:

Insects found under the bark and along the branches of pine trees.

Habitat (where it lives):

Open pine forests with large, widely-spaced older trees.

Range (where found in Texas):

Pineywoods of east Texas.

Reproduction:

2 to 4 eggs.

Population Numbers:

1994 post-breeding estimate of 925 birds in Texas.

Interesting Fact:

A woodpecker group roosts and nests in a cluster of 1 to 30 cavity trees. Most clusters have some cavities under construction, some completed and in use, and some abandoned.