Behavior
The Red-cockaded Woodpecker feeds primarily on ants, beetles, cockroaches, caterpillars, wood-boring insects, and spiders, and occasionally fruit and berries.
Red-cockaded Woodpeckers are a territorial, nonmigratory, cooperative breeding species, frequently having the same mate for several years.The nesting season runs from April to June. The breeding female lays three to four eggs in the breeding male's roost cavity. Group members incubate the small white eggs for 10–12 days. Once hatched, the nestlings remain in the nest cavity for about 26 days. Upon fledging, the young often remain with the parents, forming groups of up to nine or more members, but more typically three to four members. There is only one pair of breeding birds within each group, and they normally only raise a single brood each year. The other group members, called helpers, usually males from the previous breeding season, help incubate the eggs and raise the young. Juvenile females generally leave the group before the next breeding season, in search of solitary male groups. The main predators of Red-cockaded nests are rat snakes, although corn snakes also represent a threat.
Read more about this topic: Red-cockaded Woodpecker
Famous quotes containing the word behavior:
“The ease with which problems are understood and solved on paper, in books and magazine articles, is never matched by the reality of the mother’s experience. . . . Her child’s behavior often does not follow the storybook version. Her own feelings don’t match the way she has been told she ought to feel. . . . There is something wrong with either her child or her, she thinks. Either way, she accepts the blame and guilt.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)
“One never gets to know a person’s character better than by watching his behavior during decisive moments.... It is always only danger which forces the most deeply hidden strengths and abilities of a human being to come forth.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)
“In abnormal times like our own, when institutions are changing rapidly in several directions at once and the traditional framework of society has broken down, it becomes more and more difficult to measure any type of behavior against any other.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)