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Tracking
Quizzes
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Quiz #53 - Answer
by Brian Booth |
- A WOODPECKER
- The mystery animal is PILEATED WOODPECKER (see Photo 53G). Only a
woodpecker would hack away at a tree so intensively, and only a pileated
woodpecker has the power to create such massive chips.
- Woodpeckers thrive on drilling apart wood to eat insects that live
inside.
- This activity appears to have occurred in late autumn. The drill
holes are ragged and show signs of age. The wood chips are on top of the
previous autumn leaf litter, and are saturated from lying below the
winter snowpack.
- You could have identified this tree as a candidate to get drilled by
a woodpecker by the growth of fungi on the trunk, indicating the tree
died some time ago.
Woodpeckers are amazing creatures. They have an extraordinary sense of
smell and ability to tell whether a tree has insects boring below the
surface of the bark – they don’t just randomly drill trees until they find
one with bugs. A pileated woodpecker dismantling a tree like this is a sight
to behold. They can chop with astounding force, creating wood chips larger
than a human would be capable of with a hatchet. |
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Photo 53G
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Photo 53H, from
Washington state, shows what pileated woodpecker drill holes and
wood chips look like when fresh. Pileated woodpeckers are
particularly known for making large, rectangular,
vertically-oriented drill holes like this. This discovery was the
highlight of this tracker’s day. |
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Quiz #53 - Question
...on to Quiz #54 |
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(All photos on this page are Copyright © by Brian Booth
or Walter Muma unless indicated otherwise)
To send comments, questions or feedback about these quizzes,
email me |
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Tracking Quizzes |
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