The Hairy Woodpecker ( Dryobates villosus) is a widespread North American bird species, known for its climbing and pecking abilities. Dappled black and white, like light filtering through the forest canopy onto a tree trunk, the Hairy Woodpecker is among the most widespread North American birds. It is resident in forest and woodland habitats from near treeline in the far north and on mountains to the highlands of western Panama, many continental islands, and some islands of the Bahamas. This article delves into the dietary habits of this fascinating bird, exploring its preferred foods and foraging techniques.
Identifying the Hairy Woodpecker
The Hairy Woodpecker gets its name from the long, thread-like white feathers that run down the middle of its black back. The Hairy Woodpecker is a medium-sized woodpecker with a long, straight bill (which is at least as long as its head) and long tail feathers. Its back is black with a white stripe down the middle. The wings are black with white bars. Its head is black with white stripes; adult males have a red patch at the back of the head. This species looks very much like the Downy Woodpecker, but has a heftier bill. It's also larger, measuring 9 to 10 inches in length - about the same size as Brazil's rare Kaempfer's Woodpecker. The larger of two look alikes, the Hairy Woodpecker is a small but powerful bird that forages along trunks and main branches of large trees. It wields a much longer bill than the Downy Woodpecker's almost thornlike bill.
Habitat and Distribution
Hairy Woodpeckers are common in mature woodlands with medium to large trees. They also occur in woodlots, suburbs, parks, and cemeteries. You can find them equally commonly in coniferous forests, deciduous forests, or mixtures, and generally up to about 6,500 feet elevation. Also found at forest edges, around beaver ponds, in recently burned forests, southern swamps, open pine, oak, or birch woodlands, and orchards.
Primary Food Sources: Insects
More than 75% of the Hairy Woodpecker’s diet is made up of insects, particularly the larvae of wood-boring beetles and bark beetles, ants, and moth pupae in their cocoons. To a lesser extent they also eat bees, wasps, caterpillars, spiders, millipedes, and rarely cockroaches, crickets, and grasshoppers. The strong head and neck muscles of woodpeckers enable them to peck at the side of a tree without injuring themselves.
Wood-Boring Beetles and Bark Beetles
Bark beetles sometimes cause extensive infestations in thousands of live trees, their populations reaching into the billions. When this happens, Hairy Woodpeckers often appear in large numbers to eat the larvae. A similar pattern happens in forests that have recently burned: wood-boring beetles become very numerous. Hairy and other woodpecker species can become very common in these areas and achieve high nesting success.
Read also: Diet of Anthophora plumipes
Ants and Other Insects
In addition to beetles, ants form a significant part of the Hairy Woodpecker's diet. They also consume moth pupae in their cocoons, as well as other insects like bees, wasps, caterpillars, spiders, and millipedes. Occasionally, they may even eat cockroaches, crickets, and grasshoppers.
Secondary Food Sources: Fruits, Seeds, and Nuts
Elsewhere, a little more than 20% of Hairy Woodpecker diet is made up of fruit and seeds. They will also eat spiders and occasionally, seeds, nuts and fruits.
Foraging Behavior and Techniques
Hairy Woodpeckers typically hitch up tree trunks or along large branches, leaning back against their stiff tail feathers and springing upward with both feet at once. Unlike Downy Woodpeckers, Hairy Woodpeckers never feed on weed stalks, cattails, or reeds. They sometimes forage at the bases of trees, particularly on ponderosa pines, which are often attacked just above ground level by a species of bark beetle.
Excavation and Extraction
Beyond feeders, these woodpeckers forage for their insect prey on the trunks and main branches of both live and dead trees and on fallen logs. Skilled climbers, their strong claws enable them to hop around trunks and even cling to the underside of branches. Stiff tail feathers prop them up as they hammer at trees with their powerful beaks.
They use several foraging strategies: gleaning insects from the bark surface and crevices, pecking off bits of bark to reach prey, and tapping and listening for the sound produced above the tunnel of a wood-boring insect. After hearing that sound, they chip and chisel the wood away to reveal the tunnel and extract the insect.
Read also: Diet and behavior of the Woodpecker Finch
Visiting Feeders and Sap Wells
Woodpeckers are common visitors at feeders, eating suet and sunflower seeds. Hairy Woodpeckers sometimes drink sap leaking from wells in the bark made by sapsuckers. They’ve also been seen pecking into sugar cane to drink the sugary juice. A woodpecker frequently visits our feeder, alighting on the wooden supporting post and hopping up the post to the suet. The hairy woodpecker that visits our feeder inserts his beak into the suet cage and gobbles a bit of fat. He also carries suet to a hole he’s excavated in the post and stores it there for later use.
Benefits to the Ecosystem
Hairy Woodpeckers eat the insects that destroy forest trees, thereby saving the trees. Large numbers of hairies will appear in forests infested with bark beetles, or in recently-burned forests with wood-boring beetles. These woodpeckers have also helped control outbreaks of codling moths in orchards.
Competition and Coexistence
The hairy woodpecker’s diet and habitat overlaps with that of the downy woodpecker. A study in Quebec forests by Henri Oullet found that these two species avoid competition by foraging on different tree species, different-sized trees, and different parts of a tree. Hairies were found more frequently on tree trunks and downies on branches.
Conservation Status
Hairy Woodpeckers are common and widespread, and their populations increased approximately 0.7% per year between 1966 and 2019, according to the North American Breeding Bird Survey. Despite its broad range, the Hairy Woodpecker has been the subject of few detailed studies, especially in recent years. Much of what is known is contained in hundreds of anecdotal papers, with little major focus on the Hairy Woodpecker. Although still very widespread and fairly common, thought to have declined from historical levels in many areas. Loss of nesting sites (with cutting of dead snags in forest) is one potential problem. Starlings and House Sparrows may sometimes take over freshly excavated nest cavities.
Threats
Hairy Woodpecker populations are declining as a result of habitat loss, particularly of older forests. Like Eastern Bluebird, it competes with introduced species such as European Starling for nest holes. Although the Hairy Woodpecker is relatively common and widespread, it is threatened by forest loss, particularly of mature forests with larger trees.
Read also: Woodpecker Feeding Habits
Conservation Efforts
ABC works with a wide variety of partners in forested landscapes across the United States, ranging from Appalachia to the Pacific Northwest. Our projects help sustain and conserve habitat used by Hairy Woodpecker and many other bird species, from Cerulean Warbler to Flammulated Owl.
Attracting Hairy Woodpeckers to Your Yard
To bring Hairy Woodpeckers into your yard, try setting up suet, peanut, and black oil sunflower feeders, especially in the winter when food is scarce. If you have dead trees in your yard, or dead parts in a living tree, and if it’s safe to leave them standing, a pair of Hairy Woodpeckers might try to start a family there.
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