An Honorary Squirrel: The Acorn Woodpecker

The acorn woodpecker is a bird of the American southwest that has a very squirrel-like habit of storing acorns. In fact, this medium-sized woodpecker is so compulsive about stashing its nuts that it makes the eastern gray squirrel look like a slacker in comparison!

That's right. Each autumn, a family group of acorn woodpeckers may store as many as 50,000 acorns in a single tree, called a granary tree, with each acorn placed carefully in an individual hole drilled for that nut.

Okay, I know that hole is around here somewhere...

This compulsive nut-storing is even more amazing when you consider that the acorn isn't even this bird's primary food. Their main foods are insects, tree sap, and fruits, with the acorns put aside as a reserve food to help them get through the winter.

Acorn woodpeckers are found in mountainous pine-oak woodland areas in southwestern Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California in the United States, and in Mexico and Central America. They nest in cavities in tree trunks or limbs. With their black and white face, with the red cap and white eyes, these colorful woodpeckers have been described as clown-faced.

Acorn woodpeckers live in large and complex extended family groups that usually contain more than a dozen individuals. Families hold and defend territories. After young are raised, they may stay with the parents for several years to help their parents raise subsequent young.

The most important food is insects, which the birds glean from tree branches or catch from perches at the top of the tree canopy. However, a large amount of the acorn woodpecker family's time is devoted to creating and maintaining their huge acorn granaries. The granary may be in any tree, living or dead. In suburban areas, acorn woodpeckers may use a utility pole or even the wooden siding on a building, which can't make homeowners very happy!

An acorn woodpecker granary

The acorn woodpecker is unique in the level of cooperation that family groups devote to this communal food hoarding. The family will defend its granary against all acorn thieves, including woodpeckers and other birds such as jays, and, yes, squirrels.

Who are you calling a thief?

If you would like to read more about the acorn woodpecker, this article from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology has more information about its family structure and food hoarding habits.

My Letter To Scotts Miracle-Gro

Following up on my earlier post on Scotts Miracle-Gro's deliberate poisoning of birds with their birdseed products, I have sent the following email to the company. If you would like to contact Scotts Miracle-Gro, you can do so here.


Dear Scotts Miracle-Gro Company,


I am writing to express my outrage at finding out that your company knowingly and deliberately sold poisoned bird seed during the years 2007 and 2008.


I am a wildlife enthusiast who has occasionally used your products in the past. Later this spring I will be moving into a home with my family. I am looking forward to working in the yard and garden, and to feeding birds and squirrels in the yard. I can promise that I will never use your company's products.


You have not only deliberately and knowingly caused the deaths of birds, rodents, squirrels, and whatever other living things have eaten your poison. You have also betrayed the thousands of people who bought your products out of their love of wildlife. It sickens me to think that I may have used your birdseed during the time that you were polluting it with your poison, and that any animals may have suffered and died as a result.


You should be ashamed. But then, I'm sure you couldn't care less as long as the profits keep rolling in. I just hope that this matter will be publicized enough that you lose a substantial number of customers.


I have blogged on this matter at http://newsforsquirrels.blogspot.com/2012/03/scotts-miracle-gro-sold-poison-bird.html


and tweeted @squirrelbeebz and will continue to do my part to make sure that your callous disregard for wildlife is publicized.


Oh, and I didn't know until today that your company is a distributor of Monsanto's consumer Roundup, which is another reason to never do business with you again.

Scotts Miracle-Gro Sold Poison Bird Seed

The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company is one of the largest producers of lawn and garden products in the world. Among its products are such widely recognized brands as Miracle-Gro and Ortho. Scotts also distributes the consumer Roundup manufactured by Monsanto.

Scotts also produces wild bird food under the brand names Morning Song, Country Pride, and Scotts Songbird Selections. On March 13, Scotts Miracle-Gro entered guilty pleas in US District Court in Ohio for knowingly selling birdseed that was poisoned with the pesticides Storcide II and Actellic 5E, neither of which is approved by the EPA for use in bird foods. Their use was a violation of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, or FIFRA. More importantly, their use likely sickened and killed an unknown number of songbirds and other wildlife.

The pesticides were applied to prevent the birdseed from being infested with insects during shipping and storage. However, both pesticides contain active ingredients that are labeled as being toxic to fish, birds, and wildlife. The ingredients are known to cause overstimulation to the nervous system, that in small doses can cause nausea, dizziness, and confusion, and in higher doses, paralysis and death.

The very real dangers from the use of this product can be seen in a case in San Diego, California, where a couple purchased a package of Morning Song bird food for use in their outdoor aviary. Almost 100 birds died as a result, nearly their whole flock. Also killed were "dozens of field mice" that ate the seed.

What is worst about this case is that Scotts Miracle-Gro was warned about this problem by two of its employees, one a pesticide chemist and the other an ornithologist, as early as summer of 2007. And yet the company knowingly manufactured and sold the products with the prohibited and dangerous pesticides for almost another year. The products were only pulled from the market in 2008 when the company came under investigation by the federal government for falsifying pesticide registration documents on two other products, and likely feared that the investigation would reveal the illegal pesticide use in the birdseed.

Scotts has pleaded guilty, and is hoping to quietly reach a settlement with the court on a fine, which would include a $500,000 donation for wildlife study and preservation, so that the company can move on and be done with this matter. Whatever fine is imposed will not begin to make up for the suffering and deaths of the birds and other wildlife that ate the companies poison, or the betrayal that the company committed to the wildlife lovers who purchased the products.

I believe it is likely that I bought Scotts' bird seed during the period that the poison was included, and it absolutely sickens me to think that by doing so I might have unwittingly caused the deaths of any birds or squirrels that came to my feeders.

Regardless of whatever fine is imposed on Scotts Miracle-Gro--the higher the better--I hope that this case is well enough publicized that it will cost the company a substantial amount of business. I can promise that I will never buy one of their products as long as I live. And I hope that anyone else who reads this will do the same.

Crows

I happened to run into a couple of friends today outside of Harris Teeter...

Finches!

On Tuesday mornings I volunteer at Presbyterian Hospital in Charlotte. In the lobby area of the hospital there is a large glass cage containing several of these very colorful finches.

The name of this species escapes me at the moment. I pass them every time I go into the hospital, and always pause for a minute or two to watch them. The cage is spacious and kept very clean and well supplied with perches and nests.

Birdy morning

Standing out in the front yard for about ten minutes this morning, I heard and/or saw

Northern cardinal
Tufted titmouse
Carolina chickadee
Carolina wren
Common grackle
Eastern phoebe
Red-bellied woodpecker
White-breasted nuthatch
Red-shouldered hawk