Common Name: Acorn woodpecker
Scientific Name: Melanerpes formicivorus
Wingspan/Size: 8”-9-1/2”

How to identify them:
Black, white and red head pattern. Black backed with large white rump and a white wing patch in flight. Both sexes have whitish eyes, red on crown.

Where to find them in Oregon:
Willamette Valley from Newberg to Umpqua River, Southwestern Oregon into California.

Preferred Habitat:
Oak woods, groves and mixed forests, oak and pine canyons, foot hills.

General Behavior:
This woodpecker so delights in wedging acorns into poles and trees that at times there seems to be no more room for another nut.

Feeds on acorns but will also eat sap and flying insects.

Nesting Behavior:
Four or five eggs in a hole in a tree. In colonies. All members of the colony share in excavating holes, mostly in dead oak branches-feeding young and possibly incubating.