RCWs at Ochlockonee River State Park

Red-cockaded Woodpeckers are slightly larger than a bluebird.

The top if its head is black

and it has a large white cheek patch.

These woodpeckers like to pick old-growth live pine trees, usually ones that are 80-100 years old and ones softened by red heart disease, to hammer out nesting cavities.

Red heart disease is a fungus that causes the inner heartwood of the pine to rot and become soft enough to construct a cavity.

While all of the other woodpeckers in the southeast construct their cavities in dead trees, only the RCW makes its home in a living tree.

(Note this bird has been banded)

The process of preparing the nesting cave can take up to six years and a family or 'clan,' sets up with several, offering the largest cavity to the male, who then incubates the eggs laid in it by the female at night.

The clan usually includes the parents, year old off-spring, and two or three fledglings from previous years.  Male "helper birds" from the previous nesting season help to incubate the eggs and raise the young of the next generation.

This bird is preening.

As a defense against their chief enemies, beside man, the egg-gobbling black snake and red-rat snake, the RCWs bore small holes called "resin wells" into the bark of the cavity tree.  This creates "sap runs" and the milky white coating resembles melted candle wax as it runs from the small holes and this coating makes it very difficult if not impossible for the snakes to maintain traction as they climb the tree.

Man made nest boxes are often used to help the dwindling population of RCWs establish nesting territories.

 From the late 1800's to the mid 1900's the RCW rapidly declined due to its habitat being destroyed by logging, agriculture and other land use changes.  Because most of the longleaf pine ecosystem has been destroyed, the RCW has fewer areas in which to make its home.  Only about 1% of suitable habitat for the RCW is found throughout its former range so these artificial nest boxes are important to help them get established in new territories without their having to take up to six years to drill new nest holes.