“It’s Just a Bird Trying to Make a Living”
IT’S a hard worker, defends its group, shares in the chores, sits on the eggs, cares for the nestlings, feeds the fledglings, and slaves away for months on end without a day off. In living up to its name as the acorn woodpecker, it pecks holes in trees and stuffs them with acorns to stock its winter larder. One large pine was estimated to have 50,000 acorns embedded in it.
All of that’s fine, but a problem arises when it switches to utility poles for its pantry. It peppers them with holes, the poles are weakened, some need replacing, and that costs $800 to $1,300 (U.S.) a pole. And that means this woodpecker clan is stepping on toes—and pocketbooks!
A wildlife manager for the Arizona Game and Fish Department takes a sympathetic view, “It’s just a bird trying to make a living.” So far, even the utility company has been sympathetic but firm. The power must go through. Poles of metal, concrete, and fiberglass have been tried. Too expensive. Poles were covered with a fine wire mesh. Same verdict. A mesh of polyethylene deteriorated in the hot southwestern sun. Rubber snakes were attached to the poles but were soon ignored. Poles have been sprayed with a chemical especially formulated to repel woodpeckers. Results were good in Texas but inconclusive in Arizona.
At last report, the woodpecker wars were continuing, but the acorn woodpecker was still managing to make a living. And he’s such a strikingly handsome fellow!
[Picture Credit Line on page 31]
G. C. Kelley photo