Thanks to all of you on tweeters who responded to my request for info about
this species.

We had a whole handful of possible sites to visit, most of them away from
the Wenas campground, but we decided to go there anyway to see some of the
riparian birds. While eating lunch, we heard the unmistakeable call of a
WHWO, and about 100 yards away there was a juvenile male (bright red crown)
looking out of the nest, and an adult male came to feed it as we watched.
We stayed for about a half hour, taking photos of both birds, but saw no
others. Was the female somewhere else with one or more other young? I'd
give the nest location (a dead pine on the S side of the road through the
campground) exactly, but the young bird was obviously ready to fledge so
probably has left the nest by now, and they could be anywhere.

Many juvenile woodpeckers are sexually dimorphic, in Picoides (Downy,
Hairy, White-headed) the males typically with much red on the crown, the
females with little or none (but some females do have red, unlike the adult
females!). Juvenile flickers are dimorphic, as are White-breasted and
Red-breasted nuthatches. As the vast majority of bird species have
juveniles in which the sexes look alike, there must be something
interesting going on here. I've entertained a hypothesis that the adults
split the brood when they leave the nest, and perhaps males take care of
males, females females, but there aren't enough data points to support or
refute this hypothesis. The hypothesis makes sense, as there are sexual
differences in foraging behavior/foraging sites in many of these birds, and
it would make sense for a young bird to learn the ropes from an adult of
the same sex (of course all this behavior may be innate, not learned,
calling in question the adaptive value of the behavior, if it exists). I'd
be interested in hearing about any instance of an adult of any of these
species feeding a young away from the nest, if the sex of both adult and
juvenile is known.

THE book to have to know about bird plumges is Identification Guide to
North American Birds, Part I, by Peter Pyle, Slate Creek Press, Bolinas,
CA, 1997.

We had a fabulous birding day Saturday, and our friends from Arizona were
overjoyed by our luck. Birds thronged along the Umtanum Road, and we
recorded 97 species on what could only be called a relaxed day. We also saw
10 species of mammals, including a lengthy encounter with a hunting weasel
and a mother and calf elk (at Swamp Lake in the Cascades). Life doesn't get
much better!

Thanks again.

Dennis

Dennis Paulson, Director phone 253-756-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax 253-756-3352
University of Puget Sound e-mail dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416
http://www.ups.edu/biology/museum/museum.html