Woodpeckers are simply impressive birds. I am pleased whenever I can photograph one. I felt particularly lucky to photograph this pair of White-naped Woodpecker in India (left). But these were not a "pair" in the traditional sense — the yellow-crowned female was feeding the red-crowned bird. I think the red-crowned one was her now full-grown fledgling. She had been working a long time to get out the thick grub, and the shot was taken just before she shoved the big grub down the youngster's gullet.

I felt even luckier when Handbook of the Birds of the World chose to publish this photo. Yet, although my cover letter described the circumstances, the eventual HBW text read: "Courtship displays of woodpeckers feature many elements that are used when showing aggression. The crown feathers are erected, the head raised and the wings drooped. Mate-feeding has been observed as part of the courtship ritual of only a few picid species, among them two Dinopiumand two Melanerpes, but has only rarely been reported for the White-naped Woodpecker. Here, the red-crowned male of the latter has just presented his yellow-crowned mate with a beetle larva" (Vol. 7 at p. 376).

Well, er, no. That's not what happened. But it's a nice photo anyway.

Woodpeckers are a large family of similarly designed birds found in forested areas around the globe. They have evolved to deal with chiseling wood, including "shock-absorber" head musculature, extremely long tongues, and stiff tail feathers helping them perch upright on trees (Winkler & Christie 2002). Woodpeckers are often a "core species" of the woodland avifauna [except in two major areas that don't have any woodpeckers: Australasia and Madagascar]. I am very fond of the woodpeckers that live in my yard on the Monterey Peninsula. This male Nuttall's Woodpecker (right) was bringing food to nest hole just outside our bedroom window in June 2002. We had left a tall stub of this dead Monterey pine when we had to remove the top-heavy canopy for safety reasons, and the next year we were rewarded with a pair of Nuttall's that fledged a youngster. The tree stub would eventually crumble in high winter winds a few years later, but "our" family of these attractive little woodpeckers still frequents the neighborhood. Hairy Woodpecker Picoides villosus also nests occasionally in the yard, as do a small party of Acorn Woodpeckers.

Acorn Woodpecker breeds cooperatively in communal groups featuring one or two lead males, a harem of females (mostly sisters), and youngsters from the previous year, one of the most unusual breeding systems in the natural world. Much of the research has occurred in the oak woodlands of Monterey County, California (where I live), and some fascinating facts are in MacRoberts & MacRoberts (1976), Koenig (1981), Koenig & Mumme (1987), and Stacey & Koenig (1984). Acorn Woodpeckers also collect and store acorns in "granary trees" against lean times (below). They are also frequent at my bird feeder, eating ordinary bird seed in times when acorn crops are poor.

More fine woodpeckers occur in the red fir/lodgepole pine forests of the Sierra Nevada. There is almost nothing so pleasant on a lazy summer day in the mountains as listening for the tapping of woodpeckers and chasing each one down. The ultimate highlight is finding a rare Black-backed Woodpecker (left); this male was accompanied by a young fledgling.

Woodpeckers come in a great variety of shapes and colors. Flickers specialize in feeding on the ground, often focusing on ants. The Campo Flicker (below) of southern South America is such a species. Even it has the stiffly pointed specialized tail feathers that allow woodpeckers to perch vertically on tree trunks.

Woodpeckers are often termed "core species" because their presence is a fundamental requirement to the existence of a wide range of other birds. Woodpeckers drill new nest holes each year, and thus many old nest cavities are available for a entire suite of hole-nesting species. Many smaller species of North American swallow are dependent on woodpecker holes, as are virtually all the small owls, various bluebirds, and a huge array of small birds (wrens, chickadees) that use them advantageously. Thus the nest hole drilled by a Gila Woodpecker (above left), a small woodpecker of the American southwest, will be reused by other birds. The nest holes of large species like the Northern Flicker (above right) are particularly important for cavity-nesting species in western North America, and especially Purple Martins.

With over two hundred species around the world, there is tremendous diversity among the woodpeckers. The two wrynecks of the Old World are included within the family, and there are well over two dozen species of tiny piculets in the world's tropics. There are also huge forest-dominating species in the several genera, including the genera Dryocopus and Campephilus.
These powerful birds, such as the two Mulleripicus from the Philippines (Sooty & Great Slaty Woodpeckers), are always prized by birders. A distant shot of Great Slaty Woodpecker is above, and one of Black Woodpecker is to the right. My shots here are not much, but experiencing a huge woodpecker deep in virgin jungle is always a memorable experience. Among the huge woodpeckers nine species of extant Campephilus in the New World, and four (or more? the genus needs revisions) species of flameback (Dinopium) in southeast Asia.

Alas, two the world's most awesome woodpeckers have apparently become extinct within my lifetime. The Ivory-billed Woodpecker Campephilus principalis of the southeastern U.S. and Cuba (which may have been a separate species) was always scarce, but loss of sufficient tracts of wild habitat doomed it by World War II. There have been widely reported recent sightings, but no substantive evidence has yet convinced the scientific community that the species is still extant. The Imperial Woodpecker C. imperialis of virgin pine forests in the Sierra Madre of nw. Mexico was even larger, and has not have been confirmed since 1957. It appears these two great birds have been lost forever.