By perusing here you are reading into Angelkeep Journals’ column No. 824, now in its 16th year of publication via The News-Banner.
That’s not nearly as hard to fathom as the fact that never has a story been repeated. There is always something new to experience at Angelkeep. God sees to that. Exponentially hard to understand is how a black-headed red-headed woodpecker has never, ever, been observed prior to the summer of 2022.
Red-headed woodpecker notations previously appeared in Angelkeep Journals. After all, they are year-round dwellers all over Indiana. Strangely, they have never been seen during an Angelkeep winter. That would be a new story. Of course it would not be quite as exciting as a black-headed red-headed woodpecker story. Right?
For a bit of background Angelkeep provides, for the novice birdwatcher, some red-headed woodpecker facts, which may or may not have been previously published. Both male and female red-headed woodpeckers have the moniker, obligatory, full red head. The cousin red-bellied woodpecker has a partial red head, hue of scarlet to red-orange, patterned something like a Native American Mohawk haircut. Red-headeds are fully crimson red from nape to crown. Only the black eye and silvery beak differ.
Black covers the red-headed’s back, followed by an area of pure white rump, with black on the wings and tail, and it wears a pure white breast. Red-bellied varies by its back being mottled with black and white plus a rosy color on the white breast, hence the variance in their name. The difference between the two is, pardon the expression, black and white.
Think of the red-headed woodpecker like the proverbial joke, “What’s black and white and red head all over?” Okay, that’s an Angelkeep variation of the newspaper joke.
Now imagine an Angelkeep bird observer seeing a black-headed red-headed woodpecker for the first time, as the case this summer. Zounds! Routine procedure commences. Nikon zoom photos. Research. Success. Confirmation.
Red-headed woodpeckers linger through Angelkeep’s 2022 summer like never before. The past saw them in late spring, early summer, then came the long absence until another year. This year’s constant supply of red-headed visits to the oil sunflower feeders hanging both fore and aft the house led to a speculation that a pair existed and might nest nearby. Mayhap, actually in an Angelkeep tree. To be so lucky! Zounds! Blimey!
The black-headed red-headed woodpecker proved to be a juvenile. Although the nest, or tree cavity, was not located, found anywhere from 8 to 80 feet up a tree, it seemed almost assuredly that black-headed red-headed was native to Angelkeep.
The utter Angelkeep excitement begs yet for the baking of black, white, and red chip cookies.
According to the internet this bird will not have the black (or gray) head feathers replaced with the red until perhaps February of 2023. Since Angelkeep never had a red-headed woodpecker appear in that month, seeing this locally-born youngster achieve adulthood seems unlikely. Wiki-internet claims red-headeds to be in Indiana all year. Birdadvisors.com tells a slightly different story with red-headed breeding in northern Indiana, wintering in southern Indiana, or parts of lower America.
Red-headeds are monogamous. They mate for life. They don’t practice the multiple wives lifestyle of the red-winged blackbird. This black-headed red-headed lad or lass will be brought up right, with good morals, and marital respect. Angelkeep likes that, editorial opinion intended. Both parents help feed and raise Angelkeep black-headed red-headed until old enough to fledge. That requires nearly a month.
Angelkeep’s experiences with this bird seems to prove the parents demonstrated to the black-headed red-headed fledgling where to find oil sunflower seeds. It returns frequently to the backyard feeder. It grabs a seed and flies upward to a small hole in a nearby ash tree trunk. Exactly as seen by the previous red-headed woodpeckers, the juvenile places the seed in the hole and pecks repeatedly until the meat of the seed is obtained. Back and forth, feeder to hole, hole to feeder, until fully satisfied.
How exciting. Yippie! Yeet! A first ever sighting of a black-headed red-headed juvenile woodpecker. What a summer of 2022. Fully satisfying. No cap!
Mr. Daugherty is a Wells County resident who, along with his wife Gwen, enjoy their backyard and have named it “Angelkeep.”
