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10. The Red-Cockaded Woodpecker
- University Press of Florida
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160 10 TheRed-Cockaded Woodpecker In the southeastern coastal plain of the United States, probably no animal is as indicative of healthy, mature pine forests as the Red-cockaded Woodpecker (Picoides borealis). The species requires older pines to exist because it prefers to excavate its nesting and roosting cavities in living pines infected with red-heart disease. Red heart is a fungus that turns the heartwood of pine into a soft, crumbly core, and older trees are the more susceptible. The woodpecker bores through the tough, living outer wood and hollows out its nesting and roosting spaces in the soft inner wood.1 Red-cockadeds can use other pine species that are infected by red heart, but those trees are not as long lived as Longleaf Pine, so fewer are infected. Those species have other negative aspects as well. Another peculiar habit of the woodpeckers is that they clear a plate around the cavity hole of the bark and peck other spots nearby. As a result, sap oozes from these wounds and turns whitish, making the cavity site quite obvious from a distance. The sap flow of pine species other thanLongleaf is not as vigorous or long lasting, and the woodpeckers need that sap as a defense against nest predators, especially climbing snakes. The woodpeckers also require a low ground cover; they will abandon nesting areas that are encroached upon by a thicket. This means a fire environment under the trees. Young Longleaf Pines are fire adapted, whereas fire will kill young trees of most other pines. Thus, while Red-cockaded Woodpeckers can be found in areas with pines other than Longleaf, those trees are not optimal and certainly not as long lived. The Redcockaded is so closely tied to the fire environment of the Longleaf Pine that the woodpecker could be its numen. As areas of old-growth pines, especially Longleaf Pine, have decreased and have been replaced by faster-growing species such as Slash Pine (Pinus elliottii), the Red-cockaded Woodpecker population has decreased as well. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared it an endangered species in 1968. Anothercharacteristicofthewoodpeckerthathasendangeredthelong-termviability of the population is its social system. It lives in groups, with an older female supported by her mate and young male offspring that help rear the new young. Most young males remain with the group, but virtually all young females disperse. In the vast southeastern The Red-Cockaded Woodpecker · 161 figure 10.1. Above: Red-cockaded Woodpeckers, reproduced from original watercolor by George M. Sutton for Georgia Birds by Thomas D. Burleigh. figure 10.2. Above right: Active Red-cockaded Woodpecker nest cavity. Photo by Jim Cox, Tall Timbers Archives. figure 10.3. Right: Abandoned and enlarged Redcockaded Woodpecker nest cavity. Photo by Robert L. Crawford, Tall Timbers Archives. [44.202.183.118] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 01:41 GMT) 162 · Part II. Ecological Research and Outreach pine forests where the birds evolved, dispersing females would find other territories where either an older female had died or a young male had started a territory of his own. This behavior ensured fresh gene flow into the otherwise exclusive groups. In modern times, however, this behavior often negates efforts by conservationists to preserve remnant groves of old pine with one or a few clans. Isolated sometimes by scores of miles from other populations, dispersing females from other distant colonies may not be able to find other groups and may wander into oblivion, and the isolated groups wither with no young females for reproduction. Thus, to perpetuate the species, not only are old pines needed, but also large, contiguous tracts are essential unless there is some sort of human intervention. The woodpecker’s endangered status can be difficult to appreciate in the Red Hills, where, because of Herbert Stoddard’s enlightened management of Longleaf Pine, the species is common. This is far from the case over the rest of the former range of the species. In The Birds of Grady County, which summarized Stoddard’s local ornithological observations over a period of four and a half decades, he said of the Red-cockaded Woodpecker : “Probably no Southeastern bird offers richer reward for detailed life history studies, because interesting peculiarities of its habits and ecological requirements and preferences are many.” When Robert A. Norris came to Tall Timbers in 1962, Stoddard encouraged him to make a study of the woodpecker, but Norris demurred, preferring instead to concentrate on his avian blood research. When W. Wilson Baker arrived at...