Red-Bellied Woodpecker

The Red-bellied Woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus) is another specie of woodpecker that is omnivorous like that other specie, the Red-headed Woodpecker.  In other words, they will eat practically anything such as seeds, nuts, seeds and insects catching them in flight.

Like most woodpeckers they drum on metal gutters, aluminum roofs, transformer boxes, and hollow trees.  This drumming is done, the experts believe, to attract mates.

Or maybe they are just trying to be the next Ringo, of Beetle fame.

They love to nest in the deciduous woodlands.  Deciduous trees are the ones that lose their leaves at the end of the growing season.  Their favorite trees are willows, maples, and elms.

For nesting they prefer cavities in dead trees, even stumps, and both sexes participate in digging out a nesting cavity.

Their favorite food is arthropods that they find on tree trunks.  Arthropods include millipedes, centipedes, spiders, mites and scorpions as well as lobsters, crabs, barnacles, crayfish and shrimp.

Many cultures eat insects, both cooked and raw and they are at least as nutritious as meat, but the greatest boon that arthropods supply is pollination and the honey that bees produce.

The bees are relieved that the Red-bellied Woodpeckers prefers to dine on insects found under the bark of trees.

House cats, black rat snakes, Cooper's Hawks, and sharp-skinned hawks are known to prey on this pretty bird.  Even the notorious Red-headed Woodpeckers will invade nests as well as the Pileated Woodpecker and starlings that will throw the poor bird out on the street and take its nest.  Many old and unoccupied nesting cavities are use by other birds such as wrens, titmice, chickadees, and bluebirds

The Red-bellied Woodpecker has an enormous range that covers most of the eastern United States except for northern New England and even the Bahamas for a total of 1,158,306 square miles.  There are about 10,000,000 birds so there is little concern that they are endangered.  Migration south occurs in the most northern part of its range.

For those hardy birds that stick around in the winter, they can often be found feeding at birdfeeders.

When the Red-bellied Woodpeckers are courting in the spring, they often rub their bills together sort of like kissing, we suspect.  The female Red-bellied Woodpeckers. produces three to eight eggs and both the female and male take turns at incubation for about three weeks when the eggs hatch.  A month later the chicks get feathers and fledge.  Even after they learn to fly, they will keep company with their parents until fall.

Do not cut down your dead trees.  Woodpeckers need them.  Cutting them down eliminates the places that the woodpeckers and other birds can live.

Unfortunately, sometime woodpeckers will excavate a cavity for a nest on the wooden siding of a home.  Non-lethal woodpecker deterrent products are available to repel them.  Lethal methods are against the law as they are protected under the Migratory Bird Act.

Learn more fascinating things about woodpeckers.