Tag Archives: male Acorn Woodpecker

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Kris Kilgore wrote, "This is a video from my Ring camera.  This crazy woodpecker is fascinated with the camera.  If you play the video, please be sure to listen too.  At the end he lets out a very Woody The Woodpecker cry."

Here's a still photo I took from Kris' video.

And here is the video: Male Acorn Woodpecker and a Ring Camera courtesy of Kris Kilgore

The sound this male Acorn Woodpecker makes at the end of the recording sounds like a whole bunch of frustration to me. Perhaps he is seeing his reflection in the camera lens and wants to chase away the handsome fellow looking back at him!

Thanks to Kris for allowing me to share her video here.

Kind of a crazy weather day today - this morning huge dark clouds appeared, threatening rain but not delivering much at all. Then in the early afternoon, the marine layer moved in. Now, as I write this around 4 pm, the fog is much diminished and has pulled back, leaving us with abundant sunshine.

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It's okay to play favorites, isn't it? I love the Acorn Woodpeckers that share the Mendonoma Coast with us. They are beautifully marked, have a unique call and have great swooping flights as they come to our feeder. They particularly love sunflower seeds. Their main food source, though, is acorns and there are many Tan Oaks on our property.

Siegfried Matull photographed a male Acorn Woodpecker and has kindly allowed me to share his photo with you here. You can tell it's a male because there is no black between the white and red on its forehead.

Below is a photo I took of our bird feeder. I entitled it, "Are you done yet?" These are two females. Note the black in-between the white and red on their foreheads.

Acorn Woodpeckers work hard to store acorns in a granary tree. Here are two such trees on my neighbor's property. There are hundreds of holes in these trees. I was only able to photograph the top 1/3rd of the tall tree so you'll just have to imagine how big these granary trees are. Each hole will have an acorn stuffed in it in the fall. They will have to defend their food from raiding Jays.

It would have been a hardship for our Acorn Woodpeckers if my neighbor had taken these dead trees down. Thank goodness she didn't! They are serving a higher purpose.