The Red-Cockaded Woodpecker: The Brutal Effects Of Climate Change And Government Action chapelboro.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from chapelboro.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
A red-cockaded Woodpecker.
When it’s time to nest, the red-cockaded woodpecker gets a little picky. “They need live pine trees that are old and infected with red heart fungus to make excavating easier,” says Chuck Martin, the director of the Nature Conservancy’s Moody Forest Preserve in southeastern Georgia. The endangered woodpecker, also known as
the Yankee Doodle bird for the tiny strip of red on the males’ heads, is native to Southeastern pine forests, which are fast disappearing.
photo: Tim bower
Recently, it has received a boost from relocation programs: Biologists take young birds from healthy populations and release them into pine habitat with ready-made love shacks cavities in younger trees that save the birds the one-to-three-year process of pecking out a nest. “We just always hope the released birds will hit it off,” Martin says; if a pair does, the birds mate for life, and the male will start sprucing up his house in April by flaking off pine bark until