The Expanded Range of the Red-bellied Woodpecker

The now legendary Roger Tory Peterson answered a question once by saying "Birds have wings you know." So do people, and especially modern Americans. We are mostly a nation of movers and migrants, bearing the mantle of the traveler and seeker, searching for the lost city of gold. Our children spread those wings and find their way in another state out west or down south, or just across town.

When we consider the movement of birds, we first think of the twice a year migration that many retirees do. In Texas they call those folks who flee the Minnesota cold each winter "snowbirds." Then there is another instinct that is also important, the desire to disperse, to find that place to settle down away from the parent nest.

For some bird species this is the only movement they ever do. In New England there are eighteen species that lack the instinct to migrate in spring and fall. For better or worse they do not seek out a different climate for winter, sticking it out as best they can, and in the end doing just fine. They survive so well that there would be too many of them near the hatching home unless they used those wings and struck out permanently for parts unknown. For some of those eighteen this means moving north.

In the last half of this tired old century there are four species that have colonized New England, originating from their range in the south, the cardinal, tufted titmouse, mockingbird and, most recently, the red-bellied woodpecker. In the fall a young bird is "encouraged" by its parents to find a new home. Mom and dad need this ground to raise next year's crop, thank you very much. So off the youngster goes to seek a fortune, perhaps ending up in the next valley, but often flying quite far to find an unoccupied spot. The young red-bellied woodpecker could always find such a place farther north. When winter came, the resources to survive were somehow found and the bird thrived.

Just about the time I started birding, the first red-bellied woodpeckers appeared in the Connecticut River Valley. These woodpeckers had appeared only ten years earlier in the New York City area. They moved along the Connecticut coast and pushed up the river valley, finding the wooded river bottoms that were their favorite habitat. The very first was found in May of 1967 in Amherst and another spent two days in Pelham in March of 1969. These were temporary scouts that overstepped their bounds and probably had to return south in order to find a mate.

The new woodpecker began to appear regularly in Agawam, Southwick and Longmeadow, usually in the winter. I saw my first one in January of 1972 in Agawam. Birders who wanted to put the species on their lifelist for the state traveled from Pittsfield and Greenfield and Boston to see them. In the winter of 1976 I showed off a bird to many people in Southwick, and the next June I found a nest hole with the young birds poking their heads out, waiting to be fed. Like the other three species before them, the red-bellied woodpecker had arrived.

This is a large, noisy woodpecker, giving its rolling "churr" call often as it forages on trunks and branches for insect food hidden in and under the bark. It prefers nearly mature lowland forest, but will settle for a medium sized woodlot. It is fairly common within 15 miles of the Connecticut River, and is slowly working its way up tributaries into the hills. Worcester and the Housatonic Valley have a few birds now, and it has colonized the Boston area. Their numbers are on the verge of exploding as the young birds fill every piece of real estate they can find.

They readily come to suet feeders and will eat seed more than our other woodpecker species. They will alight on the ground to do this. They seem to co-exist well with our traditional woodpeckers, the hairy and downy. The handsome tan coloring of the belly, throat and cheek is complimented by the zebra barring of the back and wings. The red on the head is rich without being deep, covering the back of the female's neck, but extending all the way to the forehead on the male. What a wonderful addition to New England Wildlife!