Acorn Woodpecker

Common in oak and mixed woodlands throughout Sonoma County. Likely to be found anywhere there are mature oaks--which is most of the county except right at the coast and the southern marshy areas bordering San Pablo Bay. Breeds virtually everywhere it’s present in the county. Forms social groups of closely related individuals. Nests communally, using oaks and other trees. Highly social at all times. Loud, active, and hard to miss when present. Dependent on acorns as its main food source, but Acorn Woodpeckers will eat insects (the latin species name means “ant eater”) and in the summer months drink tree sap, when available. Stores acorns in holes excavated in “granary trees,” which may be trees of any kind or even utility poles (photo at left). There is a large granary pole at Spring Lake, for example. The large oak in front of Paradise Ridge Winery is a communal nesting site. Voice sounds like a cynical, gravelly laugh. Once heard, never forgotten.

From the neck down, the Acorn Woodpecker is fairly sedately patterned, all in black and white, but garishly decorated from the neck up, its face often described as clown-like. Males (pictured above) have an all-red crown, white forehead and yellowish throat. Black around the eye and at the base of the black bill. Pale iris, usually whitish, but sometimes tending toward amber. Black at the upper breast with streaking from there down the belly, with streaking heaviest near the upper breast. Finely spotted at the vent. Upper parts mostly black. Upper back is actually tinged a deep Prussian blue, but the bird generally looks simply black, except in strong light. Tail black but notice the prominent white rump patch.The rump patch and white patches in the otherwise black wings are conspicuous features in flight. Typical undulating woodpecker flight pattern. Females very much the same but red on head is restricted to the back half of the crown.