Project tackles decline in numbers of red-headed woodpeckers

Once upon a time there were four Minnesota birders who knew nothing about red-headed woodpeckers except the decline of the species — and that they wanted to help.

Being for the most part bluebird guys, they thought of building nest boxes for the woodpeckers, a strategy that has paid big dividends for the Eastern bluebird population.

The biologist they talked to laughed politely, pointing out that woodpeckers built their own homes.

So they decided to find some red-heads and check them out. They were directed to Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve, 5,400 acres of land in East Bethel owned by the University of Minnesota. Plant research there had inadvertently created an oak savanna, a red-head necessity.

On their first visit to Cedar Creek, the quartet counted 22 red-headed woodpeckers in 90 minutes. Most of the men had never seen that many red-heads in their lifetimes, according to team member Chet Meyers.

A project was born.

Seven years later, there are bright prospects for a continuing story: volunteers, hard work, research, new findings and hopefully, publication of a paper in an ornithological journal — a coup.

Red-headed woodpeckers are not common except in their preferred habitat. Around here, that would be oak savanna, a disappearing landscape.

Savanna is open land, often brushy, with mature trees scattered throughout. The woodpeckers want open land because, unlike other birds of that family, they hunt for insects from high vantage points. Dead wood provides perching and opportunities for chiseling nest cavities.

Initially, volunteers braved wood ticks and poison ivy to find and mark nest trees, almost all of which were on about 200 adjoining acres.

The team now has records of tree height, diameter and location; height of the nest cavity, and direction in which it faces. All of this is important as the group seeks to find and improve or preserve other suitable habitat.

Next came bird banding, a grad student and a cavity camera, funded with various grants. Banding allowed individual birds to be tracked. The grad student gave serious focus to the work. The camera, on a long pole, allowed viewing of nests, which average 25 feet above the ground. (Grant money for the project came from the University of Minnesota, three local Audubon chapters, the Minnesota Ornithologists' Union and Patagonia, the clothing company.)

Meyers said that some of the information being collected "is on the edge of stuff that hasn't been done before," he said. "That's exciting."

The team has found and will work with seven other state red-headed woodpecker clusters, as groups of nests are called. They are at the Minnesota River Valley National Wildlife Refuge (NWR), Belwin Conservancy in Afton, Nerstrand Big Woods State Park northeast of Faribault, the Camp Ripley National Guard training center (on the artillery range!) and three golf courses (Rutgers Bay near Deerwood, Blackberry Ridge Golf Course near Sartell and Black Brook Golf Course at Izaty's Resort at Lake Mille Lacs).

The newest of the sites is at Sherburne NWR in Sherburne County, where extensive work has been done along the Blue Stem Trail to create 150 acres of savanna. Meyers is very pleased with this project.

Savanna is a historic landscape, maintained by wildfire that kept down grass, brush and younger trees that would eventually build a forest. A few oak trees would make it to maturity. Some trees died, leaving skeletons that the woodpeckers used for nesting.

We put fire out. We trim dead branches. We cut down dead trees. For the most part, if we want savanna we have to build it ourselves.