Birds of the Table Rocks

Acorn Woodpecker

Acorn Woodpecker

Melanerpes formicivorus

Gerald and Buff Corsi
© 1999 California Academy of Sciences

I am a medium sized woodpecker with a yellowish-white face and a red crown. I make a loud ja-cob, ja-cob or wake-up, wake-up call.

I live in the Oak Savanna or pine-oak forest habitat areas on Table Rocks. I eat acorns for food. In autumn I store a crop of acorns tightly stuffed into individual holes in a tree so that no squirrel can pry them out. The storage trees are usually mature or dead pines or Douglas-firs with thick, soft bark. The holes made by a colony are used year after year. Acorns can be emergency provisions. On mild winter days I catch flying insects.

We lay four or five white eggs in a cavity in a tree. We nest in colonies, with all members of the colony sharing in excavating holes, feeding young, and possibly incubating.

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