This morning I biked up to the east edge of the Town of Ithaca on a successful quest to see the Red-headed Woodpeckers whose nest with young was located by Tom Schulenberg over 2 1/2 weeks ago. I was able to scope and photograph through a small gap in foliage at a respectful enough distance that: the adults came to the nest hole several times to feed one or more unseen nestlings; one adult went entirely inside the cavity at least twice; for awhile in between feedings a large nestling peered out of the cavity, appearing well-feathered on its head and seeming large enough to be ready to fledge soon. The feedings were frequent enough that I think the adults were only feeding at the cavity, but once I located the cavity, I was not looking around to see if they were also feeding any fledglings. Tom has noted plumage differences between the two adults when they visit his feeders. I noticed that one of the adults appeared immaculate, with bright white secondaries and a solid crimson crown. The other adult had a slight rusty tinge on the secondaries, several brown stains on the lower breast plumage, and a patch of feathers apparently missing from the rear of its crown; this was the adult who went inside the cavity each of the two times I was able to tell.
My question, for those of you more knowledgeable or research-oriented, is this: Does the difference in plumage I noticed indicate who is which sex? For instance, does the female spend a lot more time in the nest cavity than the male, thus become more likely to get stained? Does missing feathers on the back of the head indicate a female? That is, do mating male woodpeckers grab the back of the head of females, similar to mating ducks? Or is this patch of apparent missing feathers due to something else? A link to my eBird checklist, with photos, is below. - - Dave Nutter > - Checklist: https://ebird.org/checklist/S143727178 -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
