Attracting Red Bellied Woodpeckers
Red Bellied Woodpeckers are great backyard guests and a happy sight for the wild bird watcher. They will easily visit bird feeding stations and garden habitats. A red bellied woodpecker will frequent a yard for suet as well as black oil sunflower seed, and seem to be able to manage to access a wide variety of bird feeder designs.
Range and Habitat:
The red-bellied woodpecker may be found in nearly all of the eastern United States, with the exception of for northern New England. Birds in the northern most part of the range might migrate in the wintertime. The red-bellied woodpecker can be found in exposed and swampy forests. Red-bellied Woodpecker is found in open and swampy woodlands. It prefers forests, swamps or wooded suburban habitats below 600 meters elevation, but can be found at up to 900 meters in mountains. In the winter, birds in the northern most areas of their range may move south. Their breeding habitat is commonly deciduous forests in southern Canada and the northeastern United States, although they may roam as far south as Florida and as far west as Texas.
Food:
The red-bellied woodpecker consumes beetles, flies, grasshoppers,caterpillars, ants, beetle larvae and other insects. It also eats acorns, tree sap, beechnuts and fruits.They can also consume frogs, fish, nestlings and eggs. It applies its bill to dig for insects in trees and stumps. The red-bellied woodpecker occasionally stores food in a tree cavity. In the winter, the red-bellied woodpecker’s diet consists primarily of seeds and it can often be seen frequently at backyard bird feeders.
Attracting to Backyard Bird Feeders
Red bellied woodpeckers are common guests to backyard bird feeding stations. In our yard we have seen them most frequently on our double tail prop suet feeder, including having the male on one side and the female on the other:
This is only one style of suet feeder, there are may you can shop for at Wild Bird Suet Feeders. The red bellied wood[ecker’s preference in suet flavors has been peanut and peanut butter suet, but we have also watched them eat a lot of berry and fruit flavored suets.
In our backyard, their second favorite bird feeder is an open platform tray with black oil sunflower seeds. Now, we have our platform tray feeder mounted on a pole and not hanging. It is the same feeder shown below and we absolutely can’t say enough good about it. It’s made from recycled plastic, cleans very easily and the mesh is small enough to handle millet. This style feeder is highly visible to birds and goes a long way to attract new birds species to a yard.
A note on this feeder: ours is mounted on a pole. We used a threaded pipe flange and mounted it on a threaded pipe we purchased in the plumbing department of a hardware store. The recycled feeder itself has a bar on the underside which is not visible in the picture - it’s covered with seed - however, you can use this bar to screw a flange in for pole mounting. BUT! The manufacturer of this wonderful feeder offers a Manufacturer’s Lifetime Guarantee for good reason. These feeders last! However, due to the fact that it is designed as a hanging feeder we likely gave up our Manufacturer’s Lifetime Guarantee by drilling extra holes in it. So don’t take our advice on this one. Ours is used as a pole mounted platform feeder set aside from our smaller songbird feeders in order to give jays, doves, grackle invasions, etc a separate feeding area. We needed it to be solid due to the application and it can get pretty loaded with birds! We’re extremely happy with it our way but it’s a wonderful hanging feeder as it was made to be, and red bellied woodpeckers can land on it easily when it is mounted by hanging.
There is a similar wooden tray feeder available which is made to post mount:
Wooden Tray Hang or Post Mount Feeder
Shop for a wider assortment of platform feeders here: Platform Bird Feeders
Back to red bellied woodpeckers. They also like our shelled peanut feeder hand make us laugh since they don’t cling to the side mesh but instead cling to the tray, It all looks rather awkward but the woodpeckers seem quite happy. The titmice aren’t so pleased when their peanut feeder tilts with the weight of the woodpecker!
Nesting:
Both parents select the nest site and excavate the cavity. Nest are hollowed in dead trees or branches with the cavity lined with wood chips. They nest in the decomposed cavities of dead and dying trees, old stumps, or in live trees that have soft wood such as elms, maples, or willows. Female lays 3 to 8 smooth and glossy white eggs. Incubation lasts approximately 12 to 14 days, Young are fed by both parents and begin to fledge at about 24 to 27 days old. They remain close to the nest for few days more, and then they follow their parents foraging. They are fed by their parents for up to 10 weeks. At the end of this period, parent birds will drive them away. Young may breed the next spring. This species may occasionally produce two clutches per season, but generally they raise a single brood. House and box height placement from ground in feet: 12-20.
Any tips or advice?
We’ve decided to try comments and hope the spam does not kill us…so…Please let us know if you have red-bellied visitors in your personal habitat. Leave a comment and give other visitors who may be trying to attract these wonderful birds a tip. Tell us what they eat, and if you have had any nesting experience, we’d very much love to hear about it!