See our largest nesting colony of Red-headed Woodpeckers

Tours to see Minnesota's largest colony of nesting Red-headed Woodpeckers will be offered June 20. The woodpeckers and other prairie birds will be seen at Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve. It is located just west of Highway 65 near East Bethel.

Tours will take place from 9:a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Maps and driving directions are available at http://www.cedarcreek.umn.edu. No fees or reservations are necessary.

The event is offered by the Red-headed Woodpecker Recovery program, initiated in 2006 by members of the Audubon Chapter of Minneapolis.

This is an area normally not open to the public. Cedar Creek has the Midwest's largest concentration of nesting Red-headed Woodpeckers — close to 40 nesting cavities this season.

Since its beginning seven years ago, program volunteers have documented elements of Red-headed Woodpecker behavior previously unrecorded in scientific literature on the species. University of Minnesota graduate students are assisting the program in monitoring behavior. At least one research paper is scheduled for publication.

The program presently includes banding of birds to track nest-site loyalty, and use of a camera (attached to a long pole) to get photos inside the birds' nesting cavities. Videos and photographs of the birds and birds in nests can be found at www.redheadrecovery.org

Red-headed Woodpeckers are regular but uncommon nesters in Minnesota. Most of the nesting is found in the central and southern parts of the state. The birds prefer nesting in savannah landscape — grassland with a scattering of mature and dying oak trees. The birds nest in dead wood. They eat acorns, collecting and storing them for later consumption, often in winter if conditions are mild enough for the birds to overwinter.

The Minnesota Breeding Bird Atlas, a statewide census project completed three years ago, found 102 confirmed nestings by this species, 83 probable nestings, and 267 possible nestings. Clusters of nesting birds (three or more pairs) have been located in Nerstrand Big Woods State Park near Faribault, Camp Ripley near Little Falls, at two golf courses in north central Minnesota, and on private land in two locations.

If you know of other locations for this species, the recovery program would like to know. You can contact the program at www.redheadrecovry.org

Most of these photos were taken at Cedar Creek.

Red-headed Woodpeckers hawk insects, as this bird demonstrates.

A pair of Red-headed Woodpeckers at their nest cavity.