Subject: [Tweeters] Woodpecker brood patches
Date: Jun 24 15:20:21 2010
From: Stephen Shunk - steve at paradisebirding.com


BobnBernie and others,
Both sexes of most woodpeckers often show brood patches during breeding
season. Males typically do all night incubation and brooding, and both
parents share the duties during the daytime. The brood patch is especially
important while brooding the hatchlings, since woodpeckers (of all ages) do
not possess down feathers, making the young more vulnerable than other birds
until they grow their first set of feathers.
Steve Shunk

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Message: 9
Date: Wed, 23 Jun 2010 21:54:45 -0700
From: "BobnBernie" <bobnbernie at comcast.net>
Subject: [Tweeters] Pileated brood patch
To: "tweeters tweeters" <tweeters at u.washington.edu>
Message-ID: <B5266431B48C49DCADACC07AE855AB4A at BOBSFLYER>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

We took pictures of a female Pileated woodpecker on our feeder. We didn't
notice until we were looking at them on the computer that she has what we
think is a brood patch.

We have had females in the past during breeding season and had never seen
anything like this. Could it have been necessary this year with such a cool
spring or is this typical?

You can view her at the link.
http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c301/BobnBernie/Pileatedbroodpatch.jpg

BobnBernie
Renton
BobnBernie at Comcast.net

--
Stephen Shunk
Paradise Birding
Sisters, OR USA
www.paradisebirding.com
541-408-1753
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