Red-Cockaded Woodpecker Field Trip

The public is invited to see baby red-cockaded woodpeckers up close on Saturday, May 13th.  Chuck Hess, a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Forest Service, will lead a field trip to one of the red-cockaded woodpecker colonies that he has been monitoring for 17 years.  He will climb up to a nest and bring down several 7-10 day old nestlings to band – and display.  Participants will also see adult woodpeckers flitting from tree to tree and hear their distinctive “rubber ducky” calls.

Hess has banded more red-cockaded woodpeckers – and knows as much about them – as anyone in the world.  He works tirelessly to save these beautiful birds from extinction.  Hess spends long hours for 2 ½ weeks in May banding baby woodpeckers at 150 nests.  The banding will later help to identify birds for translocation.  Suitable pairs will be moved to other populations in the eastern part of the National Forest in Wakulla County – or to protected forests in Mississippi and other states.  Roughly 40-50 of the birds banded each year will be moved elsewhere to groups with no females or with too few birds to sustain the population for much longer.

In May, Hess has just a 3-day window at each nest.  Chicks younger than 7 days are too small and delicate for leg bands.  Chicks older than 10 days have their eyes open, can see that Hess is not their mother, and won’t let him near.  Only chicks 7-10 days old can be taken from their nests and given a unique combination of colorful plastic leg bands.  Getting to the chicks requires fearlessly climbing 10-60 feet of portable ladder, then blindly fishing in the nest cavity with a homemade lasso.

To sign up for this field trip (and obtain more information), send an email to lynn_artz@hotmail.com or call (850)926-8756.  There will be only one trip with a maximum of 20 participants.  There is no charge to the public for this field trip which is sponsored by the Concerned Citizens of Wakulla (CCOW).

This article originally published on May 8, 2006.

Written by :

westmark

 

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