Red-bellied woodpeckers communicate using vocalizations, non-vocal sounds, and physical display. This is a very vocal species throughout the year, though they are most noisy during the breeding season. Red-bellied woodpeckers use six calls to communicate. They also communicate by drumming on dead trees, dead stubs and utility poles with their beaks. Drumming is used to announce ownership of a territory and in pair bond formation and maintenance.
Communication Channels: visual ; acoustic
Perception Channels: visual ; tactile ; acoustic ; chemical
Red-bellied woodpecker populations appear to have grown in recent years. Because this species can inhabit a variety of forest types and stages, it is more adaptable and less likely to be threatened or endangered than other woodpecker species. This species' success may be partially attributable to it's ability to adapt to the environment provided by spreading suburbs in many areas. There are an estimated 10,000,000 red-bellied woodpeckers across the geographic range. This species is protected under the U.S. Migratory Bird Act.
US Migratory Bird Act: protected
US Federal List: no special status
CITES: no special status
State of Michigan List: no special status
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species: least concern
There are no known adverse effects of red-bellied woodpeckers on humans.
Red-bellied woodpeckers help to control insects that are considered pest species.
Positive Impacts: controls pest population
Red-bellied woodpeckers affect the populations of the animals they eat. They also provide food for their predators. They host at least two species of mites, Menacanthus precursor and Philopterus californiensis.
Red-bellied woodpeckers compete for food with blue jays and several other species of woodpeckers. They compete for nest sites with red-cockaded woodpeckers, European starlings, northern flickers, flying squirrels, red-headed woodpeckers and downy woodpeckers. Abandoned red-bellied woodpecker nest holes are used by a variety of other cavity-nesting birds and mammals.
Ecosystem Impact: creates habitat
Red-bellied woodpeckers are omnivorous. They eat a wide variety of fruits, nuts, seeds, berries and tree sap, as well as arboreal arthropods and other invertebrates. These include ants, flies, grasshoppers, beetle larvae and caterpillars. Red-bellied woodpeckers also take small vertebrates, including brown and green anoles, tree frogs, small fish, nestling birds and bird eggs.
Gleaning, probing, excavating, pecking, bark scaling, and hawking are all methods used by red-bellied woodpeckers to forage for food. Once captured, small food is consumed by swallowing it whole. Large prey is thrashed against a tree and pecked at. An interesting feeding adaptation of red-bellied woodpeckers is their tongue. Their tongue is long, cylindrical, pointed, sticky, and has a spear-like tip. It is well adapted for excavating prey from cracks.
Red-bellied woodpeckers forage primarily on the trunks and limbs of trees and snags. Studies have shown that males and females forage differently. Males forage primarily on trunks, while females forage primarily on tree limbs. Females also forage higher on the trees than males.
Red-bellied woodpeckers are known to store extra food for later consumption. Food items such as nuts, acorns, corn, fruits, seeds and insects are stored deep in pre-existing cracks and crevices of trees or posts.
Animal Foods: birds; amphibians; reptiles; fish; eggs; insects; terrestrial non-insect arthropods
Plant Foods: seeds, grains, and nuts; fruit; sap or other plant fluids
Foraging Behavior: stores or caches food
Primary Diet: omnivore
Red-bellied woodpeckers are found in the eastern half of the United States. Their range extends east from the wooded portion of the Great Plain states to the Atlantic coast and from the Gulf of Mexico to southern portions of Ontario and northern Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and New York.
Biogeographic Regions: nearctic (Native )
Red-bellied woodpeckers are adaptable to a variety of forested habitats. Though they are most commonly associated with mature hardwood forests, they also thrive in mixed pine-hardwood forests, mesic pine flatwoods, heavily timbered bottomlands, swampy woods, and riparian forests. They usually live below 600 m elevation, but can be found at up to 900 m in the Apalachian mountains.
Range elevation: 900 (high) m.
Habitat Regions: temperate ; terrestrial
Terrestrial Biomes: forest
Other Habitat Features: riparian
The oldest known red-bellied woodpecker lived to be at least 12 years and 1 month old.
Average lifespan
Status: wild: 12.1 years.
Average lifespan
Status: wild: 145 months.
Red-bellied woodpeckers are medium sized birds with a distinctive black-and-white patterned back and a long, chisel-shaped bill. Adults weigh about 72.5 grams (range 56 to 91 g), and are 22.9 to 26.7 cm long. They have a wingspan of 38 to 46 cm. Males are about 8-9% larger, on average, than females. Two characteristics that distinguish red-bellied woodpeckers from woodpeckers native to North America are the black and white zebra pattern on their backs, and the red belly found in a small section of the ventral region. The face and belly are a dull grayish color. Male red-bellied woodpeckers have a bright red cap that covers from the forehead to the nape of the neck. Females have red only on the napes of their necks. The legs and zygodactyl feet (two toes forward, two toes back) are dark gray, and the chisel shaped bill is black.
Juvenile red-bellied woodpeckers are similar in appearance to adults, but have a horn-colored bill and lack any red on their heads. Unlike many birds, red-bellied woodpeckers do not show seasonal variation in the coloration.
Average mass: 75.2 g.
Range length: 22.9 to 26.7 cm.
Range wingspan: 38 to 46 cm.
Sexual Dimorphism: male larger; sexes colored or patterned differently; male more colorful
Other Physical Features: endothermic ; bilateral symmetry
Average mass: 72.5 g.
Predators of adult red-bellied woodpeckers include birds of prey such as sharp-shinned hawks and Cooper's hawks, black rat snakes and house cats. Known predators of nestlings and eggs include red-headed woodpeckers, European starlings, pileated woodpeckers, gray rat snakes and black rat snakes.
When approached by a predator, red-bellied woodpeckers either hide from the predator, or harass it with alarm calls. They defend their nests and young aggressively, and may directly attack predators that come near the nest.
Known Predators:
Red-bellied woodpeckers are thought to be monogamous. Pairs form any time from early winter to late spring. Males attract females with a combination of tapping, "kwirr" calls, and drumming. Mutual tapping is an important part of communication between the pair and in nest-site selection, which may be an important part of establishing a pair bond. Breeding pairs do not appear to stay together for more than one season.
Mating System: monogamous
Breeding pairs begin forming any time between early winter and late spring, and nesting usually begins in March and April. The male and female select a nest site together. The process of selecting the nest site is highly ritualized in this species, and involves much mutual tapping, in which one member of the pair taps softly on the wood from inside a cavity, and the other taps back from the outside. Nests are usually excavated in dead trees or the dead limbs of live trees. Both male and female excavate the nest cavity, which has an opening approximately 5.9 x 5.7 cm. When the nest is complete, the female lays about four eggs at one-day intervals. The eggs are smooth, oval, and glossy white. Both parents incubate the eggs, which hatch after about 12 days.
"Pip"-ing sounds come from the egg two hours before hatching. The chicks are altricial at hatching; they are naked, their eyes are shut, and egg teeth can be seen on the upper and lower mandibles. About six days after hatching, their eyes begin to open and claws, rectrices, and remiges appear. Around the tenth to twelfth day feathers project from skin. Around the fifteenth day the eyes open completely and the sex can be determined. Around the twenty-first day the young have all of their feathers and the egg teeth are gone. The young vocalize throughout their development. During this time, both parents bring food to the chicks in the nest. They begin to leave the nest 24 to 27 days after hatching.
Fledglings usually stay near the nest for a few days after fledging. About two days after leaving the nest the fledglings start to follow their parents. The parents continue to help feed the young for up to 10 weeks after they fledge. Toward the end of this period, the adults drive the fledglings away. The young birds are probably able to breed the next spring. While red-bellied woodpeckers occasionally raise two broods per season, most pairs are only able to raise one brood per season.
Breeding interval: Red-bellied woodpeckers breed once per year.
Breeding season: Nesting usually begins in March or April.
Average eggs per season: 4.
Average time to hatching: 12 days.
Range fledging age: 24 to 27 days.
Range time to independence: 2 to 10 weeks.
Range age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female): 1 (low) years.
Range age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male): 1 (low) years.
Key Reproductive Features: iteroparous ; seasonal breeding ; gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate); sexual ; oviparous
Average time to hatching: 11 days.
Average eggs per season: 4.
Both male and female red-bellied woodpeckers invest heavily in parental care. Both sexes select the nest site and excavate the nest, as well as incubating the eggs and feeding the chicks for up to 10 weeks after they fledge.
Parental Investment: altricial ; pre-fertilization (Provisioning, Protecting: Female); pre-hatching/birth (Protecting: Male, Female); pre-weaning/fledging (Provisioning: Male, Female, Protecting: Male, Female); pre-independence (Provisioning: Male, Female, Protecting: Male, Female)
