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Bird
Sightings
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THE GOLDEN-FRONTED WOODPECKER
by
Walter L. Meagher
The blind baby hatches from a white egg (why speckle the eggs if they don’t have to be concealed) in a cavity in a tree (or in a fence post), with wood chips for bedding, excavated by its father but now attended by both parents who are monogamous. So begins the life of a woodpecker, including the Golden-fronted, a full-time resident in our area and perfectly at home in semi-arid landscapes largely devoid of trees but for one – the mesquite. There is so little ‘gold’ on its front it could just as well be called the ‘Mesquite Woodpecker’.
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Woodpeckers are birds of forest, dense and extensive; it is the habitat they are fitted for, but some members of the family found a way to live in semi-arid lands.
The Golden-fronted has a variety of tools; they define the family (Picidae, Picids for short). A strong beak with a chisel-end, is first. The bird ‘hammers’ holes into bark to search for insects at a speed of about 12 mph (19.31 kmph); it also excavates a nest by hammering, sometimes making more than one cavity before satisfied, a craftsman after all. Another use of hammering: the male ‘drums’ during courtship, also to establish his territory – a sound that enlivens the dark northern forest. A woodpecker’s tongue is long (6.6 inches/ 16.8 cms on average), cylindrical, sticky with spiny hairs and retractable. A beetle grub exposed by hammering is ‘spiked’ by the spiny hairs and held fast to the sticky tongue as the prey is rolled into the woodpecker’s mouth.
Stiff tail feathers are another adaptation, allowing the bird to strike bark and trunk from the greatest distance relative to its body length, and to hammer incessantly with immense force. If the skull bone was not cushioned by extra musculature, and thickened, the bird would kill itself from concussion. Nor could a woodpecker work so energetically without neck muscles more developed than those of other birds; nor grip a tree so firmly as it does without the rearrangement of the normal pattern of bird toes. Most woodpeckers have two toes forward and two backward. This remarkable ensemble of ‘adaptations’ suggests to creationists that not even 40 million years was enough time to evolve a woodpecker!
We have seen the Golden-fronted Woodpecker from our patio, a seasonal visitor to the spindly quaking aspen tree that leans against the outer wall. If the Golden-fronted foraged in the manner particular to Picids, it would start low on the trunk and walk up the tree interrogating the bark as it rose; but aspens don’t have the right kind of bark. Instead, when it came to our aspen, it was carrying a hickory nut which it wedged in a V of the tree and hammered until the nut surrendered its sweet meat.
Wild fruits, including tunas, are a regular part of its diet. This could be one of the reasons the Golden-fronted is so often seen in El Charco. Of animal matter, the bird takes beetles and ants; according to one study, 50% of the bird’s animal diet is made up of grasshoppers. Bad news for grasshoppers! It ‘hawks’ these, a feeding style shared with flycatchers. Dependence on grasshoppers is confounded, and limited, by the grasshopper strategy to hatch in great numbers all at once in late summer/early autumn. The hunger of predators is soon satisfied while many grasshopper offspring live to mate, lay eggs and secure another generation.
These are facts – of anatomy, diet and behavior – but they do not move our affections. The bird itself does. The Golden-fronted Woodpecker, handsome and self-confident, adds to the world an asset our bank accounts cannot guarantee.
Photography by Wayne Colony
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