Tweets,



Thanks to Kevin Aanerud and Adam Sedgley for posting the ACORN WOODPECKER
report from Magnuson Park this morning.



After an early miss I got back to the 65th St. entrance about 12:30 to find
about a dozen anxious twitchers milling about up near the entrance off Sand
Point Way. Problem was, there were no oaks there, and thanks to Kevin I had
seen a photo he'd taken of the bird this morning with a fat Red Oak acorn in
its beak surrounded by Red Oak leaves, which was the definitive clue that
the "North Parking Lot" in question was the one down on the flat opposite
the Marine Fisheries Center gate between the 65th St. entrance road and the
new pond complex. This parking lot is ringed with exotic Red Oaks and the
ones on the eastern margin were particularly large and with lots of acorns.
A gang of Steller's Jays was commuting from these oaks to their haunts south
of the entrance road.



No sign at first of the woodpecker in question, but then at 12:45 it flew in
from "Promontory Point" to the southeast. We were all able to enjoy good
views of it in the top branch of one of the largest oaks along the eastern
perimeter of the parking area. About 1 PM it flew south across the entrance
road to some large alder snags, paused a moment, then flew east back into
the thick woods on Promontory Point.



It is likely that it travels a regular route between these areas, so if you
go for a look be patient and it may fly back for more acorns.



This is the first documented King County record to my knowledge and one of
quite a spate of western Washington reports since this summer. It occurred
to me that the Red Oak acorns are probably too fat around to fit the
standard Acorn Woodpecker hole, perhaps because Red Oaks and Acorn
Woodpeckers nowhere co-occur naturally. Curious if this guy can learn to
drill bigger holes.



Gene

Lake Forest Park, WA

Enhunn323 at comcast.net