Woodpecker Condos. We welcome Bridget Piculell (center), Ryan Drobek (left), and the continuing presence of Justin Stahl. Bridget and Ryan, both from the San Diego area are graduates from UC Santa Cruz (Biology) and are working with Eric Walters.
When they are not working out in the field watching the very sociable Acorn Woodpeckers, Bridget enjoys knitting and Ryan is into bicycles. However, this fall and winter they will focused on the project that Eric is directing. This is basically an experiment to see what might control the number of acorn woodpeckers. It is curious that the woodpeckers have relatively few young and there are large areas where they do not occur. One hypothesis is that the woodpeckers are limited by habitat. Most old trees have been cut down for firewood for the last hundred years or so around here. The old trees are perfect for woodpeckers who excavate nesting and resting holes and drill thousands of holes to hold their acorns. So, to add this special aspect of habitat, Eric, Bridget, Justin and Ryan will be helping Eric build and hang 50 artificial next boxes (shown above) in trees and adding old logs that have been drilled with holes by acorn woodpeckers elsewhere but have been cut down for various reasons. By the way- if you have a fallen log or large branch with a lot of acorn woodpecker holes in it, we could use it! PG&E staff have been very helpful in donating a few old power poles the woodpeckers have pecked to a weakened state that needed to be replaced. Over the next month or so, the artificial woodpecker nest holes (wooden- made from branches of a pine that died on Hastings) and a variety of "previously owned" woodpecker trees will be festooned over Hastings. In the next few years we will see if these woodpecker condos are claimed by any wandering woodpeckers and if these new condo woodpeckers have any effect on the more established neighboring woodpeckers. The very sociable woodpeckers will probably have an interesting story; we will keep you posted.