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Transcript 6/25/22:
Some days I think it would be nice to have a home high up in a tree. I’d have the finest vantage point around and would be rocked gently to sleep by the wind. Welcome to The Nature of Phenology where we share the cycles and seasons of the outdoors. I’m your host, Hazel Stark, and this episode was written by Joe Horn.
For a handful of years, I lived on the banks of a Downeast river surrounded by a mixed hardwood forest of predominantly maple, poplar, shadbush, cherries, and a healthy smattering of spruces and firs. The fall colors were exquisite, the ice skating was nearly unmatched, the blackflies were horrendous, but the swimming was quite nice on a hot day. Every year, as the sun lingered ever longer in the sky signaling the approaching summer solstice, the forest would come alive with bird activity. One particularly noisy neighboring bird would make its nest in a poplar snag near the river and it is this week each year that the hatchlings could be heard throughout the day calling out for food from their hairy woodpecker parents.
Hairy woodpeckers are one of the nine species of woodpeckers that we have here in Maine. Of those nine, I notice four most often: Northern flickers, pileated woodpeckers, downy, and hairy woodpeckers. Pileated woodpeckers are pretty impossible to mistake for anything else we have in our woods. Northern flickers are also quite large and uniquely can be found hopping around in lawns eating ants. Downy and hairy woodpeckers can be a bit of a challenge to discern between. Both have a somewhat checkered appearance of blacks and whites with the males of both species having a red patch on the backs of their heads. Generally, downy woodpeckers are smaller and hairy woodpeckers are larger, though their size can overlap somewhat. So I take a look at the bill of these birds to get a positive ID. The hairy woodpecker has a bill that is as long as its head, whereas the bill of a downy is about half the length of its head.
This area where I had been living ended up being quite the woodpecker paradise thanks in large part to the abundant mature poplar trees which provided ample food and nesting for these energetic birds. Of our Maine tree species, few match the poplar in their softness, lightness, and tendency to rot. This makes for ample insect habitat for growing woodpecker chicks but also means that nesting pairs of woodpeckers can easily excavate through the rotten heart of declining poplar to make a luxurious nest. Food, easy shelter, and a lovely view up the river: what more could you want in life?
In early spring each year, we would notice the woodpeckers beginning to court. They would drum on the various trees and would eventually begin excavating their nest cavity, but then for a time all would be a bit quiet. It wasn’t until the chicks were big enough to begin requesting food from their parents that things got noisy again. And noisy it most certainly was, right up through the weeks surrounding their fledging where all the siblings seem to chase each other around seemingly unsure about how to live their best woodpecker life—or maybe, just maybe, they are living their best lives as they flit around chasing their brothers and sisters seemingly without a care in the world. But I digress.
Hairy woodpecker nests are typically in tree trunks, though the entrance hole can often be found in the side of the base of a large broken branch. The nest is somewhat vase-shaped in that it is narrower at the top and wider at the bottom where the eggs will sit. Overall, the nest cavity can be up to a foot deep and does not have much in the way of nesting material other than a few woodchips leftover from the initial excavation.
So this weekend as you are out and about soaking up the season, keep your ear and eyes to tree snags in hopes of hearing the unbridled chattering of a family of young hairy woodpeckers eager to get food from their parents. If you do hear that chattering, look around the snags for a two-inch diameter entrance hole. If you, like me, like to gawk at these kinds of things, you could even settle in with your binoculars in hand and see if you can catch a glimpse of the parents making their way to and from the nest dropping off food for their little ones.
You can download this episode and find a link to the transcript, photos, information about podcasting and more by visiting archives.weru.org. Thanks for listening and please join us next week for another dive into The Nature of Phenology.
References:
“Hairy Woodpecker Life History, All about Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology.” Www.allaboutbirds.org, http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Hairy_Woodpecker/lifehistory#:~:text=Hairy%20Woodpeckers%20typically%20excavate%20their. Accessed 23 May 2022.
The Nature of Phenology 
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