By Bruce Mast, Golden Gate Birder/Bay Nature
They are the clowns of the oak savannah — acorn woodpeckers — with their harlequin faces, gregarious habits and off-kilter laughing calls that inspired Woody Woodpecker. According to “Birds of North America,” the acorn woodpecker is a “common, conspicuous inhabitant of foothill and montane woodlands from northwestern Oregon, California, the American Southwest, and western Mexico through the highlands of Central America to the northern Andes in Colombia. Throughout its range, this species is closely associated with oaks (genus Quercus) and is most commonly found in pine-oak woodlands.”
Here in the Bay Area, acorn woodpecker colonies are common in the East Bay hills and the western slopes of Mount Diablo, particularly where there are concentrations of valley oaks. South of Livermore, they can be locally abundant in the Diablo range. They are rare in Tilden and Redwood Regional Parks, and practically unheard of west of the Hayward Fault.
So what’s up with the recent spate of acorn woodpecker sightings in urban San Francisco and the East Bay lowlands?
Read the complete story in Bay Nature.