Harvest Time

We have some special woodpeckers here on the West Coast (USA).  They live in small colonies and join forces to harvest and protect a winger's supply of acorns.  'Granary' trees can be used for many years, until they finally fall down and the woodpeckers find another suitable tree.

Now is the time of year when acorns are just losing their greenish cast and turning brown.  We sat and watched at least five birds for a couple of hours.  They kept flying off and grabbing acorns off living trees, then they'd bring it back to their granary tree and either stuff it in a pre-existing hole -- or one kept dropping acorns in the cavity left by a broken off branch.  Once we watched an acorn woodpecker dropping acorns down the top of an open pipe!  I'm sure he never got to eat those!

 I had time to take my sketch as far as getting it inked.  I added paint after I got home.

Acorn Woodpeckers

While Dale was photographing these acorn woodpeckers, I got to watch and sketch. The colony of woodpeckers has been using this granary tree for several years, so the holes are ready and waiting. A few new ones are dug each year and eventually the tree will become so rotten, the woodpeckers will have to move on to another. Meanwhile most of the acorn are tucked into individual holes, always the pointed end first. The birds were also dropping them into the large cavity. Because of a couple large cracks we could see a lot were already stored in there. ... and sometimes the birds shelled the acorn and stored each half in a crack.

This is as far as I got sketching on location. Later I finished it using the photos on my laptop for reference.

For more about the woodpeckers go to www.elvafieldnotes.blogspot.com