I went out to the American Three-toed Woodpecker site along Forest Service
Road 1018 this morning. It was eerily quiet. Sometime between 8am
yesterday and 9:00am today the young fledged and were nowhere to be seen or
heard. About 10 minutes later I heard drumming coming from the flagged
"Black-backed Woodpecker drumming tree." I went over there and found the
adult male Am. Three-toed drumming from the top of it. It stayed around the
area drumming, always perching at the top of a snag for the next hour.
Three of the four trees it used had a thin spike protruding from the top
that it would hammer on. It eventually flew across the road and went deep
into the forest.
A question for our resident woodpecker expert and author, is it usual for
different species to share a drumming tree? I didn't see or hear the
Black-backeds in the area, but Mark Gonzalez initially found the
Black-backed using the same snag about 6 weeks ago and others have seen it
using the same snag a few times since then.
Down the road in the open area near the Millican Crater road I found many
birds still on territory, including 6 Thick-billed Fox Sparrows, 2
White-crowned Sparrows, 1 Willow Flycatcher, 1 Lazuli Bunting and 2
Green-tailed Towhees.
Tom Crabtree, Bend
