THE GRANARY TREE & ACORN WOODPECKERS.
One fine sunny day in Dec 2021, my daughter-in-law went on a hike to Westlake Trails. We were visiting them in Thousand Oaks then. She came home all excited as she had seen something very curious and interesting; she wanted to take me there and show me her discovery! My curiosity was piqued and I was equally eager to visit the place. I had to wait for a bright sunny day to come along as there was a period of rainy days. That day arrived in the fourth week of December.
What I saw there made me awestruck and spell-bound! There was a very old, hoary Oak tree whose trunk was fully embedded with bright, brown round things which shone like gems against the dark brown bark. Closer inspection revealed that they were all Oak acorns! This was the handiwork of the ACORN WOODPECKERS.
This oak tree was a ‘ GRANARY TREE ‘!
The Granary Tree with Acorns hammered in by the Acorn woodpeckers
The "Master Hoarder" at work!
The Acorn Woodpecker is hammering it in.
The clown-like red cap, black and white face, black neck white underparts, all have a sheen!
These woodpeckers look like wide-eyed clowns and live in large groups in western Oak woodlands. They are very fascinating, you may call them the Master Hoarders of the Avian world. Generally, woodpeckers drill holes in the tree to get larvae or small invertebrates; not so our Acorn woodpeckers. They drill into trees to create storage holes! A family of around ten to twelve woodpeckers uses one tree to drill thousands of holes which they then fill with acorns! They collect fallen acorns and place them in the holes of suitable size and then tamp them down, tap, tap, tap- with their strong beaks to ensure a snug fit! This is a very effective strategy for surviving the cold weather without the need of migrating to warmer climes in search of food. Acorns are rich in fat. If they were stockpiled together, they could be prone to getting mold or otherwise becoming inedible. Storing them on the ground would make them accessible to deer, squirrels, turkeys, and other acorn eaters! So this is the best way to store them.
The granary tree is easy to defend, one acorn woodpecker is posted as a sentry against marauding ground squirrels and other woodpeckers. One single tree may be used by generations of these woodpeckers as their granary! According to the Cornell Lab, a single granary tree can contain an astonishing 50,000 acorns and other nuts!
Now let me describe this interesting woodpecker with such unique habits :
ACORN WOODPECKER (Melanerpes formicivorus)
The acorn woodpecker has a brownish-black head, back, wings, and tail; a white forehead, throat, belly, and rump. The eyes are white. The adult male has a red cap starting at the forehead, whereas females have a black area between the forehead and cap. The white neck, throat, and forehead patches are distinctive identifiers!
This is the story I learned after going to the Westlake Trails about these unique hoarders of the bird world and their Granary trees!!
Don’t you think this is very fascinating?
Aditi, May 2022.