Camera Critters: Red-Headed Woodpecker

In October (10-11) I took another trip, my second in 2008, to Necedah NWR in central Wisconsin. The goal of my first trip, which was in early June was to capture photographs of the endangered Karner blue butterfly. My secondary goal was to get some pics of red headed woodpeckers and although I did get a couple of pics they were not as good as I hoped for. So I decided to return in October to try and get some better shots.

We first noticed the red headed woodpeckers when we visited the park back in the fall of 2007. The 2007 trip was the first time that we visited the refuge. We went looking for whooping cranes but what we found instead were red headed woodpeckers.
One reason that I was hoping to get some good red head pics is because it is currently on the Audubon Societies watch list because their population has declined almost 5% per year since 1980. Since 1966 their population has declined by around 50%.
The red heads declining numbers are primarily due to habitat loss. They rely on wooded areas with a lot of dead trees, snags and stumps, which they use for roosting and caching food. Unfortunately human activities such as clearing out dead wood, clear cutting forests, farming, and fire suppression have destroyed much of the acceptable habitat.
At Necedah there is plenty of dead trees for the red heads to roost and cavities to nest in. The seeds around for them to eat and the forest floor does not have much undergrowth. This is important because do much of their foraging for insects on the ground and in the air. They are also one of the few types of woodpeckers that cache food for future consumption and the only type of woodpecker that will cover its cache.