Acorn Woodpecker

The thump, thump of the acorn woodpecker chiseling holes for nesting and food storage is a familiar sound in the Sacramento region. These woodpeckers, slightly smaller that robins, have clown-like black and white face markings. A little red cap sets off the black patches around the eye and bill. As it flies, white patches show in the black wings, and the strong feet help it cling to trees as it hunts for food or works at wood carving.

Acorn woodpeckers are active, sociable and noisy, doing a lot of "yakking" as they travel back and forth among trees or to telephone poles. Often they will dive in the air for insects and return again and again to the same look-out perch.

They live in oak woods and gather quantities of acorns which they store in dead tree limbs, fence posts and telephone poles. Their favorite food is the insects and their larvae which live in the acorns.

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