White woodpeckers are medium-sized birds that are found in forests across North America. They have striking black and white plumage and a distinctive red crest on the tops of their heads. White woodpeckers use their strong, chisel-like beaks to hammer and excavate nesting cavities out of dead trees. But what do these interesting birds eat?
Insects
Insects make up the majority of the white woodpecker’s diet. Their favorite insect foods include:
- Beetle larvae
- Ants
- Termites
- Caterpillars
- Grasshoppers
- Crickets
- Spiders
White woodpeckers use their powerful beaks to chisel, pry, and hammer into trees to find insects hiding in the bark or wood. They can hear the movement of active insect larvae under the bark. Their long, sticky tongues can dart in and out to snatch insects from crevices.
Nuts and Seeds
While insects make up most of their diet, white woodpeckers will also eat nuts and seeds, especially in winter when insects are scarce. They particularly relish:
- Acorns
- Pine nuts
- Pecans
- Almonds
- Sunflower seeds
- Pumpkin seeds
They use their chisel-like beaks to break open hard shells and access the nutritious contents inside. White woodpeckers may wedge nuts and acorns into the crevices of tree bark to hold them in place while pecking them open.
Fruit and Berries
Though not a primary food source, white woodpeckers will sometimes eat fruits and berries such as:
- Wild cherries
- Grapes
- Blackberries
- Elderberries
- Wild raisins
- Apples
They tend to eat more fruit in late summer and fall when berries and other fruits ripen. Their sturdy beaks help them access the flesh inside tough-skinned fruits.
Tree Sap
White woodpeckers will drink sap from certain trees, including:
- Maples
- Birches
- Willows
Tapping and lapping up tree sap provides sugar and nutrients to supplement their main diet. Sapsucker woodpeckers specialize in accessing sap, but other woodpeckers like the white woodpecker will opportunistically drink sap as well.
Occasional Foods
Less commonly, white woodpeckers may prey on the larvae, eggs, or nestlings of other birds nesting in cavities. They may also eat lizards, frogs, snakes, mushrooms, corn, suet, peanuts, and bread offered at bird feeders.
How White Woodpeckers Find Food
White woodpeckers have several key adaptations that help them find and capture food:
- Powerful beak – Their reinforced, chisel-tipped beak can hammer through wood and thick bark to access hiding insects.
- Long tongue – Their tongue is long and coated in sticky saliva, allowing them to probe deep into crevices for insects and larva.
- Strong feet – The sharp claws on their feet allow them to easily climb up tree trunks and along branches.
- Boring instinct – They instinctively excavate holes in wood to access food.
- Keen hearing – White woodpeckers can detect insects under bark by sound.
- Good vision – Their vision helps them spot nut and fruit sources.
How They Eat and Digest Food
White woodpeckers have specialized adaptations for eating and digesting their food:
- They use their long, barbed tongue to skewer, pry, and pull insects from tunnels and crevices in wood.
- Their sharp, chisel-tipped beak tears away bark to access hiding insects.
- Powerful muscles in their neck allow them to hammer rapidly to excavate nest cavities or dig for food.
- They use their feet to brace themselves upright on tree trunks while pecking.
- A specialized narrow skull and shock-absorbing sinuses cushion their brain from the high-speed pecking.
- Saliva helps coat prey items as they are captured by the tongue.
- The woodpecker’s digestive system can break down wood fibers and extract nutrients from boring insect larvae.
This specialized anatomy allows white woodpeckers to chisel, hammer, pry, pull, and ultimately ingest and digest a wide variety of food items.
Favorite Food Trees
White woodpeckers search for food on a variety of tree species. Some of their favorites include:
Tree | Food Items |
---|---|
Oaks | Acorns, beetle larvae, ants |
Maples | Sap, insect larvae, seeds |
Pines | Pine nuts, beetles, sap |
Willows | Insects, sap |
Birches | Insects, sap |
Cherries | Fruit, borers |
Apples | Fruit, borers |
As shown in the table, oaks, maples, pines, willows, birches, cherries, and apples can all provide excellent sources of sap, fruit, nuts, and protein-rich insects for white woodpeckers.
Habits and Behavior While Foraging
White woodpeckers display characteristic habits and behaviors while searching for food:
- They adopt an upright, vertical posture on trunks, using their stiff tail feathers for support.
- They tap loudly and rapidly on wood using their beak, listening for insect activity under the bark.
- They pry off loose bits of bark and excavate holes to access insects and larva.
- They use their long tongue to snake out and capture insects deep inside tree crevices and tunnels.
- They perch on branches and reach to pluck fruits, nuts and berries.
- They wedge acorns and nuts into bark crevices to hold them while pecking them open.
- They excavate patterns of small holes in organized rows to access sap.
- They work methodically around a tree, foraging for food in a spiral pattern from bottom to top.
Their upright stance, pecking, prying motions, and excavating behaviors are all classic foraging habits of white woodpeckers.
Year-Round Versus Seasonal Foods
Certain food types are eaten year-round, while others are more seasonal for white woodpeckers:
- Year-round – Insects like ants, beetle larvae, and caterpillars under bark are a food staple throughout the year.
- Winter – Nuts and seeds from pine cones, acorns, etc. are more important winter foods.
- Spring – Sap and cambium tissue provide nutrition during early spring.
- Summer – Fruits like cherries and berries are eaten when ripe in summer.
- Fall – Hard mast like acorns peaks in abundance during fall.
While insect larvae remain essential year-round, different seasons bring peaks in specific nuts, seeds, sap, fruits and other seasonal abundance.
Amount of Food Consumed
White woodpeckers consume a significant amount of food each day. On average:
- An adult white woodpecker will eat about 1/3 of its body weight in food daily.
- A 150 gram woodpecker would eat around 50 grams or 1.8 ounces of food per day.
- This may consist of 30-90 individual insects, plus assorted nuts, seeds and fruit.
- They may visit hundreds of trees in a day, boring into thousands of sites hunting food.
- Woodpeckers must eat frequently due to their high metabolism and energy expenditure from foraging.
- Breeding adults consume even more food, up to 50% more than normal.
The energetic foraging behavior of white woodpeckers allows them to find and consume dozens to hundreds of individual food items daily.
Courtship Feeding
An interesting feeding behavior occurs during breeding season – courtship feeding. To attract and bond with a mate, the male will:
- Capture foods like insects, nuts and fruits.
- Offer this food to the female by holding it out for her.
- The female may beg, flutter her wings, and call to stimulate his feeding.
- The male inserts the food into the female’s mouth in a courtship ritual.
This helps the pair form their bond and may provide needed nutrition for egg production. After breeding, both parents work together to feed their nestlings in the cavity nest.
Caching Food
White woodpeckers may cache or store food to eat later. This is especially common in winter, but occurs year-round. They hide food like acorns, nuts and seeds in:
- Cavities and crevices in tree bark
- Excavated holes in wood
- Cavities in fence posts or structures
Their excellent memory allows them to relocate these hidden food stores later when needed. Bark stripping around the cache sites may help them identify locations.
Competition for Food
White woodpeckers face competition for food resources from other wildlife species:
Species | Food Competition |
---|---|
Other woodpecker species | Insects, nuts, sap |
Squirrels | Nuts, seeds |
Rat species | Nuts, fruit, insects |
Martens, raccoons | Insects, larvae |
Bears | Hard mast like acorns |
Flying squirrels | Fungi, fruit, insects |
Other birds | Berries, insects |
Their specialized foraging skills and high energy levels give white woodpeckers an advantage, but they still must compete with these other wildlife groups for available nourishment.
Impacts of Food Scarcity
When food becomes scarce, white woodpeckers exhibit some key impacts and responses:
- They may increase time spent foraging and range further searching for food.
- Adults may consume cached foods and forego courtship feeding.
- They increase consumption of any available nourishment like sap, suet or fruits.
- Some birds may starve, reducing population numbers.
- Reproductive impacts like smaller clutches, reduced nesting attempts, and lower fledgling success may occur.
- Competition and conflict with other species increases during scarcity.
- They exhibit higher levels of stress hormones when food is limited.
Getting adequate nutrition is challenging for white woodpeckers at the best of times. During periods of food scarcity, they exhibit significant impacts that can affect their health, populations, and behavior.
Adaptations for Finding and Consuming Food
White woodpeckers possess specialized adaptations for finding and eating their food:
- Chisel-like beak – Ideal for boring into wood and hammering off bark to find insects.
- Long barbed tongue – Can spear, extract and consume soft-bodied insects deep in tunnels.
- Tough skull – Cushions the brain from high-speed hammering forces on the beak.
- Feet with sharp claws – Allow them to grip vertically on tree trunks while pecking.
- Supple tail feathers – Help brace them upright against the trunk as they forage.
- Acute hearing – Detects insect larvae moving under the bark.
- Sharp vision – Helps them spot and identify fruit and seed sources.
The woodpecker’s specialized physical features and senses allow it to exploit food resources other birds cannot access as effectively.
Benefits to Forest Ecosystems
The foraging activities of white woodpeckers provide some key benefits to forest ecosystems:
- They help control populations of wood-boring insects like bark beetles.
- Older excavated cavities provide nesting sites for other cavity-nesting birds and mammals.
- Chiseling bark makes trees more susceptible to fungal spore infection, assisting decomposition.
- Excavating speeds nutrient cycling by exposing dead inner wood to breakdown.
- Their digging promotes aeration and water movement in saturated, flooded or compacted soils.
- Seeds they cache but forget may germinate and propagate plant species.
The unique foraging behavior of woodpeckers makes them ecosystem engineers – their feeding activities alter forest structure and function in many ways.
Conservation Status
The white woodpecker has an extensive range and large total population. According to the IUCN Red List, it is classified as Least Concern. However, localized declines have occurred in some regions due to:
- Habitat loss from development and logging
- Increasing urbanization and forest fragmentation
- Competition for food from invasive insect pests
- Climate change impacts on forests and insects
Maintaining healthy, connected forest ecosystems will be important for the long-term conservation of white woodpecker populations across their range.
Conclusion
In summary, white woodpeckers are specialized birds uniquely adapted for extracting food from forests. Powerful beaks allow them to chisel and hammer wood seeking hiding insects. A long, barbed tongue can spear soft-bodied insects deep in crevices. Though insects like beetle larvae and ants make up most of their diet, they also consume nuts, seeds, fruit, sap and some other incidental foods. Different seasons bring shifts in favored foods – insects remain a constant staple, while nuts, seeds, sap and fruit peak at certain times annually.
White woodpeckers exhibit characteristic upright foraging behaviors, using their stiff tails for support as they cling vertically to tap and pry at tree trunks. Their excavating and bark stripping behaviors provide benefits to forests, aiding decomposition and nutrient cycling. While their populations currently remain stable, continued conservation of woodland habitats will be needed to ensure white woodpeckers thrive long into the future.