Summary

Did you know?

Red-headed woodpeckers are one of the few woodpecker species that cache food (store it hidden from sight). They are known to store seeds, nuts, and insects. Live grasshoppers are wedged into tight crevices so they cannot escape (Cornell 2016).

State Ranking Justification

The red-headed woodpecker has experienced a substantial decline in the last 30 years, as shown by the 2000-2005 Breeding Bird Atlas. The species was noted as confirmed or probable breeding in only 95 Atlas blocks (McGowan and Corwin 2008). Specific causes for the decline are unknown.

Short-term Trends

The red-headed woodpecker experienced a 76% decline in Breeding Bird Atlas blocks between the 1980-1985 and 2000-2005 periods (Andrle and Carroll 1988, McGowan and Corwin 2008) . Whether this decline represents a similar decline in population size is unknown, although it is likely.

Long-term Trends

Smith et al. (2000) note "documented declines," but with few specifics.

Conservation and Management

Threats

The reasons for the population decline remain unknown, but there are a number of potential threats. European starlings may be outcompeting red-headed woodpeckers for nest cavities. Loss of agricultural lands may have resulted in the loss of suitable breeding habitat in some areas. There has also been a reduction of mast producing trees with drastic population declines of some species. For example, American chestnut and American elm populations have been nearly eliminated by chestnut blight and Dutch elm disease, respectively. Land management practices that include removal of dead trees reduces suitable nest sites. Car collisions are also possible, especially when nest sites are close to roads (Cornell Unviersity 2016).

Conservation Strategies and Management Practices

Land management practices should allow trees to mature and dead limbs and trees should remain when possible to help preserve potential nest trees. Some open areas are desirable for foraging.

Research Needs

Reasons for recent population declines remain unclear, but declines appear to be range-wide. Research is needed to determine decline causes that test current theories such as declines in food supply, habitat loss, and competition with other cavity-nesting species.

Habitat

Habitat

In New York, red-headed woodpeckers are found in the following habitat types: (1) open areas with scattered trees (e.g., parks, golf courses, roadsides), (2) open swamps and river bottoms with dead, standing trees (Levine 1998, McGowan and Corwin 2008).

Associated Ecological Communities

• Appalachian oak-hickory forest* (guide)
  A hardwood forest that occurs on well-drained sites, usually on ridgetops, upper slopes, or south- and west-facing slopes. The soils are usually loams or sandy loams. This is a broadly defined forest community with several regional and edaphic variants. The dominant trees include red oak, white oak, and/or black oak. Mixed with the oaks, usually at lower densities, are pignut, shagbark, and/or sweet pignut hickory.
• Floodplain forest* (guide)
  A hardwood forest that occurs on mineral soils on low terraces of river floodplains and river deltas. These sites are characterized by their flood regime; low areas are annually flooded in spring, and high areas are flooded irregularly.
• Maple-basswood rich mesic forest* (guide)
  A species rich hardwood forest that typically occurs on well-drained, moist soils of circumneutral pH. Rich herbs are predominant in the ground layer and are usually correlated with calcareous bedrock, although bedrock does not have to be exposed. The dominant trees are sugar maple, basswood, and white ash.
• Mowed lawn with trees
  Residential, recreational, or commercial land in which the groundcover is dominated by clipped grasses and forbs, and it is shaded by at least 30% cover of trees. Ornamental and/or native shrubs may be present, usually with less than 50% cover. The groundcover is maintained by mowing and broadleaf herbicide application.
• Orchard*
  A stand of cultivated fruit trees (such as apples, cherries, peaches, pears, etc.), often with grasses as a groundcover. An orchard may be currently under cultivation or recently abandoned.
• Pitch pine-oak forest (guide)
  A mixed forest that typically occurs on well-drained, sandy soils of glacial outwash plains or moraines; it also occurs on thin, rocky soils of ridgetops. The dominant trees are pitch pine mixed with one or more of the following oaks: scarlet oak, white oak, red oak, or black oak.
• Pitch pine-scrub oak barrens (guide)
  A shrub-savanna community that occurs on well-drained, sandy soils that have developed on sand dunes, glacial till, and outwash plains.
• Red maple-hardwood swamp* (guide)
  A hardwood swamp that occurs in poorly drained depressions, usually on inorganic soils. Red maple is usually the most abundant canopy tree, but it can also be codominant with white, green, or black ash; white or slippery elm; yellow birch; and swamp white oak.
• Silver maple-ash swamp (guide)
  A hardwood basin swamp that typically occurs in poorly-drained depressions or along the borders of large lakes, and less frequently in poorly drained soils along rivers. These sites are characterized by uniformly wet conditions with minimal seasonal fluctuations in water levels. The dominant trees are usually silver maple and green ash.

* probable association but not confirmed.

Range

New York State Distribution

The range covers all of New York. They are rarely found in the central Adirondacks, Catskills, and downstate urban areas (Levine 1998, McGowan and Corwin 2008).

Global Distribution

The breeding range extends from southern Alberta and southern Saskatchewan to southern New Brunswick (formerly), south to central Texas, Gulf Coast, and Florida, west to central Montana, eastern Wyoming, eastern Colorado, and central New Mexico (AOU 1995). During the non-breeding season, red-headed woodpeckers are found regularly through the southern two-thirds of the breeding range and rarely to the northern limits of the breeding range (AOU 1995).

Identification Comments

Identifying Characteristics

Melanerpes erythrocephalus is a medium-sized woodpecker with a rounded head, spike-like bill, and a short tail. Adults have a scarlet red head and neck, white underparts, black back, and large white patches on their wings and rump. The white wing patches makes the bird's lower back appear white when it's perched. Immatures have similar marking as adults. Wing patches are white, but there are rows of black spots near the trailing edge. The head is brown or gray-brown instead of red. The flight pattern is similar to blue jay. Nests are typically placed in dead trees or dead parts of live trees. Females lay 3-10 pure white eggs.

Characters Most Useful for Identification

This is the only North American woodpecker with an entirely red head and neck.

Best Life Stage for Proper Identification

Adults are the easiest to identify.

Behavior

Red-headed woodpeckers forage for food in a similar manner to other woodpeckers: by hammering at wood with their bill. They also catch insects in flight and on the ground (Cornell University 2016). Food is sometimes cached, including live grasshoppers that are wedged into crevices (Cornell University 2016). Their territorial behavior includes aggression toward other birds that includes removing eggs and nests.

Diet

Red-headed woodpecker diet includes insects (approximately 1/3) and plants (2/3). They eat a variety of insects, such as beetles, cicadas, grasshoppers, midges, and honeybees. Plant food includes nuts, seeds, berries, and corn. Nests of other birds are sometimes raided with eggs or nestlings consumed.

Best Time to See

The best time to observe red-headed woodpeckers in New York is during the breeding season from May to August.

Similar Species

• Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus)
  The pileated woodpecker is larger with a long tail. It has a distinctive red crest. Underparts are black.
• Red-bellied Woodpecker (Melanerpes carolinus)
  The red-bellied woodpecker has a longer, more pointed bill, black and white barring on its back, red only on its crown, and a pale, buff face.

Red-headed Woodpecker Images

Taxonomy

Red-headed Woodpecker
Melanerpes erythrocephalus (Linnaeus, 1758)

• Kingdom Animalia
  • Phylum Craniata
    • Class Aves (Birds)
      • Order Piciformes (Woodpeckers)
        • Family Picidae

Additional Resources

References

Ackley, D. 1966. More notes on red-headed woodpeckers near Oneida. Kingbird 16:214.

American Ornithologists' Union (AOU). 1983. Check-list of North American Birds, 6th edition. Allen Press, Inc., Lawrence, Kansas. 877 pp.

American Ornithologists' Union (AOU). 1998. Check-list of North American birds. Seventh edition. American Ornithologists' Union, Washington, D.C. [as modified by subsequent supplements and corrections published in The Auk]. Also available online: http://www.aou.org/.

Andrle, Robert F. and Janet R. Carroll, editors. 1988. The atlas of breeding birds in New York State. Cornell University Press. 551 pp.

Belson, , M. S. 1998. Red-headed Woodpecker (MELANERPES ERYTHROCEPHALUS) use of habitat at Wekiwa Springs State Park, Florida. M.Sc. thesis, Univ. of Cnetral Florida, Orlando.

Bent, A.C. 1939d. Life histories of North American woodpeckers, U.S. Nat'l. Mus. Bull. 174. Washington, D.C.

Bull, John. 1974. Birds of New York State. Doubleday, Garden City, New York. 655 pp.

Carter, M., C. Hunter, D. Pashley, and D. Petit. 1998. The Watch List. Bird Conservation, Summer 1998:10.

Carter, M., G. Fenwick, C. Hunter, D. Pashley, D. Petit, J. Price, and J. Trapp. 1996. Watchlist 1996: For the future. Field Notes 50(3):238-240.

Cornell University. 2015. All about birds [web application] Copyright 2015. Available https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Red-headed_Woodpecker/id. (Accessed: March 25, 2016).

Ehrlich, P. R., D. S. Dobkin, and D. Wheye. 1992. Birds in Jeopardy: the Imperiled and Extinct Birds of the United States and Canada, Including Hawaii and Puerto Rico. Stanford University Press, Stanford, California. 259 pp.

Harrison, C. 1978. A Field Guide to the Nests, Eggs and Nestlings of North American Birds. Collins, Cleveland, Ohio.

Harrison, H. H. 1979. A field guide to western birds' nests. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston. 279 pp.

Ingold, D. J. 1989. Nesting phenology and competition for nest sites among red-headed and red-bellied woodpeckers and European starlings. Auk 106:209-217.

Ingold, D. J. 1994. Influence of nest-site competition between European starlings and woodpeckers. Wilson Bull. 106:227-241.

Ingold, D.J. 1991. Nest-site fidelity in Red-headed and Red-bellied Woodpeckers. Wilson Bulletin 103(1):118.

Kilham, L. 1983. Life history studies of woodpeckers of eastern North America. Nuttall Ornithol. Club Pub. No. 20. vii + 240 pp.

Levine, E. 1998. Bull's birds of New York State. Comstock Publishing Associates, Ithaca, NY.

McGowan, K.J. and K. Corwin, eds. 2008. The Second Atlas of Breeding Birds in New York State: 2000-2005. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY. 688 pp.

Moskovits, D. 1978. Winter territorial and foraging behavior of Red-headed Woodpecker in Florida. Wilson Bulletin 90:521-535.

New York Natural Heritage Program. 2023. New York Natural Heritage Program Databases. Albany, NY.

New York State Breeding Bird Atlas. 1984. Preliminary species distribution maps, 1980-1984. New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, Wildlife Resources Center. Delmar, NY.

New York State Breeding Bird Atlas. 1985. Final breeding bird distribution maps, 1980-1985. New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, Wildlife Resources Center. Delmar, NY.

Short, L. L. 1982. Woodpeckers of the World. Museum of Natural History [Greenville, Delaware], Monograph Series xviii + 676 pp.

Smith, K.G., JH Withgott, PG Rodewald. 2000. Red-headed woodpecker (Melanerpes erythrocephalus). In the Birds of North America, No. 518 (A. Poole and F. Gill, eds.). The Birds of North America, Inc., Philadelphia, PA.

Terres, J. K. 1980. The Audubon Society encyclopedia of North American birds. Alfred A. Knopf, New York.

Venables, A., and M. W. Collopy. 1989. Seasonal foraging and habitat requirements of Red-headed Woodpeckers in north-central Florida. Florida Game Fresh Water Fish Comm. Nongame Wildlife Program Final Report Project no. GFC-84-006.

Williams, J. B., and G. O. Batzli. 1979. Competition among bark-foraging birds in central Illinois: experimental evidence. Condor 81:122-132.

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About This Guide

This guide was authored by: Hollie Y. Shaw

Information for this guide was last updated on: March 31, 2016

Please cite this page as:
New York Natural Heritage Program. 2023. Online Conservation Guide for Melanerpes erythrocephalus. Available from: https://guides.nynhp.org/red-headed-woodpecker/. Accessed December 8, 2023.