I have heard red-bellied woodpeckers calling since about Jan. 25 while I've walked in forested areas southwest of Lake Minnetonka.
They are doing the whicker call like that of the northern flicker, which is the call we hear as the nesting season approaches. They also drum loudly on resonant trees.
These showy and now-noisy woodpeckers can be seen throughout much of the eastern half of the United States, except in the most northern parts. Birders here in the Twin Cities a century ago would not have heard the sounds of the red-bellied woodpecker.
The handsome zebra-backed woodpecker is one of the bird species that has extended its range northward into Minnesota. Dr. Thomas S. Roberts, an ornithology researcher at the University of Minnesota in the early 1900s, reported that the first red-bellied woodpecker in Minnesota was seen in 1893 in La Crescent. By 1930 this species was beginning to breed as far north as the Twin Cities. They have been seen in forests along the North Shore of Lake Superior in recent years.
Red-bellied woodpeckers are about the same size as red-headed woodpeckers, but their outstanding black-and-white backs, patterned like a ladder, are a distinguishing difference. If they live in your neighborhood, you will see them on mature trees. They are easily attracted to feeding stations year-round for seeds and suet. Their natural food consists of about equal portions of animal and vegetable matter. Insects, acorns, juniper berries and wild grapes are among their favorite foods.
Jim Gilbert's Nature Notes are heard on WCCO Radio at 7:15 a.m. Sundays. He taught and worked as a naturalist for 50 years.
