Lewis Woodpecker
Lewis Woodpecker
Range and Habitat:
Crucial habitat characteristics include an open tree canopy, a brushy under story with ground cover, deadened trees for nest cavities, dead or fallen woody debris, perch sites, and ample insects. Lewis’ Woodpeckers use open ponderosa pine forests, clear riparian woodlands of primarily cottonwood, and logged or burned pine. They also use oak timberlands, orchards, pinyon-juniper forests along with other open coniferous forests, and agricultural lands. The species appears to prefer open ponderosa pine at high elevations and open riparian forests at lower elevations. They have also demonstrated a preference for open stands near water. Since the species captures insects from the air, perches close to gaps or in open canopy are important for foraging habitat.
Lewis’ Woodpeckers often use burned off pine forests, although suitability of post-fire habitats changes with the age, size, and level of the burn, concentration of remaining snags, and the geographic area. Birds may relocate to unburned stands once the young are fledged. They have been in general thought of as species of aged burns instead than new ones, moving in many years after a fire and dead trees begin to fall and brush grows, five to thirty years later than the fire occurred. For instance, in Wyoming, the species was more common in a seven-year-old burn than in a twenty-year-old burn. Overall, desirable circumstances include an open canopy, availability of nest cavities and perches, abundant arthropod prey, and a shrubby understory. Even so on a two- to four-year-old burn in Idaho they constituted the most predominant cavity nester and happened in the highest nesting concentrations ever registered for the species. As habitat suitableness decays, however, their population decline. Based on data gathered through the Audubon Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) and the Audubon Christmas Bird Count (CBC), the Lewis’s Woodpecker population may have declined by 60% since the 1960’s.
Different than other woodpeckers, Lewis’ Woodpeckers are not morphologically well adapted to excavate cavities in hard wood. They are inclined to nest in a natural cavity, deserted Northern Flicker hole, or previously used cavity. Occasionally they will excavate a new cavity in a soft dead tree, dead branch of a live tree, or decomposing utility pole. The coupled pair may come back to the same nest site in consecutive years.
Food:
Studies suggest that Lewis’ Woodpeckers eat adult emergent insects such as ants, beetles, flies, grasshoppers, tent caterpillars, mayflies. in summertime, and mature fruit and nuts in autumn and winter. They are opportunistic and may react to insect outbreaks and grasshopper swarms by increasing breeding densities. Different than other woodpeckers, the Lewis’ Woodpecker does not bore for insects but will fly catch and harvest insects from tree branches or trunks or drop from a perch to catch insects on the ground. The species particularly favors acorns and nuts and fruit in autumn and winter, and hoards food in natural crannies such as tree bark and cracks in utility poles, making the food to fit crevices. They likewise eat huckleberry, currant, mountain ash and chokecherries. In some areas, wintering birds depend more on insects than on hoarded food.
Nesting:
House and box height placement from ground in feet: 12-20.