I grew up in Walnut Creek, California, and saw Acorn Woodpeckers regularly
all through my childhood. They like to horde acorns by drilling holes in
trees or telephone poles and wedging the acorns into the holes. The
telephone pole down the street from our house was literally studded with
acorns from top to bottom. One summer in particular, there must have been
several thousand acorns embedded in that one pole--quite a sight.

Dan Brown
Redmond, WA

----- Original Message -----
From: "B & P Bell" <bellasoc at isomedia.com>
To: "Kelly Cassidy" <lostriver at completebbs.com>; "Tweeters"
<tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, January 04, 2006 10:55 AM
Subject: Re: [Tweeters] How to link Pine Siskins to Acorn Woodpeckers


> Hi Kelly and Tweets
>
> I like your idea. So ...
>
> Acorn Woodpecker - I lived in the Sacramento Valley for many years and
> observed Acorn Woodpeckers on a daily basis. They are really interesting
> birds, particularly in their family groups during the nesting season. Much
> communal activity between closely associated nests with mutual visiting
> going on. The vocal communications going on during this time is intense
> and could be considered a "noisy racket" by some, but I always enjoyed it.
> I have missed seeing these birds after several trips down to the Lyle
> area, but maybe this year.
>
> American Avocet - Wonderful birds and I always enjoy my trips over to the
> east side to see them. One of my best memories is from that time down in
> California. A friend and I were on the way from Sacramento out to Point
> Reyes for the fall shorebird migration. As we passed around the head of
> San Franciscon Bay there was a pond alongside the state highway (that
> conveniently had a nice wide shoulder). The pond was loaded with
> approximately 600 American Avocets who were involved in a feeding frenzy.
> The whole group was marching side by side, in lock-step, back and forth
> thru the shallow water and sweeping their bills from side to side to stir
> up the mud. They were obviously gorging themselves on some minute
> critters, and were oblivious to us standing watching them from about 30
> feet away.
>
> I look forward to other Tweets interesting observations of these first
> "species of the week".
>
> Brian H. Bell
> Woodinville WA
> bellasoc AT isomedia.com
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Kelly Cassidy" <lostriver at completebbs.com>
> To: "Tweeters" <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
> Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2006 10:47 PM
> Subject: [Tweeters] How to link Pine Siskins to Acorn Woodpeckers
>
>
>> This morning (January 3, 2006), a little flock of siskins trilled and
>> chittered their way across the yard. Since I have no bird feeder,
>> siskins
>> rarely spend much time in the yard. They buzz through, checking out all
>> the
>> trees for foraging potential. Sometimes, they hit a batch of tasty seeds
>> or
>> bugs and hang out a few days. Usually, they move on within the day, as
>> they
>> apparently did today.
>>
>> I would not have given them much thought, except for the recent
>> discussion
>> on tweeters about this being a siskin "low" period, which led to me
>> pondering how a group like tweeters can periodly get going on a
>> discussion
>> of a particular species, with posters tossing out first-hand anecdotal
>> observations or interesting research tidbits. This being the new year
>> and
>> all, I then thought it might be worthwhile to have a
>> "species-of-the-week"
>> for which tweeters wrack their memory for their observations of that
>> species.
>>
>> So, how to choose a species to start? Phylogentic order wasn't
>> appealing,
>> since we would all pass out from boredom wading through the zillions of
>> ducks. (No offense to thos duck biologists out there.) Alphabetical
>> order
>> by common name seemed better, since it scrambles the phylogentic groups.
>> So, I sorted my list of birds regularly occurring in Washington. The
>> first
>> bird that comes up is Acorn Woodpecker. Hmm. Not likely a bird too many
>> Washington birders have a lot of first-hand experience with. Second bird
>> is
>> American Avocet. A little better.
>>
>> Okay, so what the heck. I propose these first two species,. Acorn
>> Woodpecker and American Avocet as species-of-the-week. For these two
>> featured birds:
>>
>> Any interesting behaviors you've seen first-hand?
>>
>> Do either of these birds evoke any outstanding birding memories that
>> maybe
>> don't have anything to do with the bird itself, except that the memory is
>> associated with the bird?
>>
>>
>> I confess to never having seen an Acorn Woodpecker (although I think I
>> heard
>> one birding a park in California during a professional meeting).
>>
>> American Avocet: In my mind, this bird is inextricably linked, along
>> with
>> several other species, with my reentry into birding after a 15-year
>> hiatus.
>> I had traveled from Pullman to Olympia to offer an opinion about the
>> ecological value of a piece of property someone was thinking of
>> bequeathing
>> to WSU. I rode with Dick Johnson on the way back to Pullman. Dick
>> wanted
>> to make numerous birding stops. That was okay with me, since I am a
>> meandering traveler prone to numerous sight-seeing stops myself. On this
>> 13-hour trip acorss the state, we saw an Avocet in a muddy pond in
>> eastern
>> Washington from the shoulder of the highway, a striking bird in an
>> otherwise
>> drab landscape. "Recurvirostra is its scientific name," Dick said. So
>> fitting, and so easy to remember. Wish all the other scientific names
>> were
>> so easy.
>>
>> Kelly Cassidy
>>
>>
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>
>
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