46 Nebraskaland • July 2020
remain – much like the proverbial blooming rose in a bed of
sand.
Joel Jorgensen, nongame bird program manager for the
Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, said red-headed
woodpeckers are drawn to such places and fires have the
potential to increase local populations, depending on the
severity. Research shows that fires not only create more
snags, but also can create more open forest stands for
flycatching. As long as fires do not destroy active nest
cavities, they can be beneficial.
"Dense woodlands are less desirable and host lower
densities of birds," Jorgensen said. "So, a good fire can
produce a lot of primo red-headed woodpecker habitat, but if
it burns everything and there are no snags, there may be little
or no habitat left."
Chaley Jensen of Scottsbluff, Nebraska's education
coordinator for the Bird Conservancy of the Rockies, said no
red-headed woodpeckers were captured in nets in the first
seven years of the conservancy's banding station at Chadron
State Park. However, one was caught two years after fire
burned through the park, and the station has captured and
banded seven others since. Perhaps the captures were just
coincidence, but those birds surely have used the burned
trees of the area.
With an increasing number of trees from the 2012 fires
decaying and falling to the ground, any boom brought by that
event may be on the downward slide. Regardless, there is still
a lot of forest remaining in the Pine Ridge, and undoubtedly
more wildfires to come – although land managers are
working to make them much less severe. Research shows
that prescribed burning can also have positive effects for
woodpeckers and many other species.
Adult males and females, which both help rear their young,
have the same conspicuous appearance, but chicks have
gray-brown plumage that serves as camouflage as they stick
their heads from the holes in dead trees waiting for parents
to deliver food.
While primarily insectivores, the redheads are the most
A red-headed woodpecker chick awaits a food delivery from
one of its parents. Both adult males and females have a role
in rearing young.
A red-headed woodpecker uses zygodactyl toes to cling to a
fence post. The arrangement of two toes forward, two toes
back, helps them grip sheer surfaces.
