Red-bellied Woodpecker

About the Red-bellied Woodpecker

Ask anyone what this bird is called and they will say "red-headed woodpecker" - and be wrong. The Red-bellied Woodpecker wears a brilliant red cap and nape (full crown on males, nape only on females) over a boldly zebra-barred back; the actual red belly is a faint blush you need good light and better luck to see.

It is the big, noisy, everyday woodpecker of eastern and central Texas: creek timber, oak neighborhoods, and city parks all host its rolling "churr" call and undulating flight. At feeders it hauls off sunflower seeds and suet with authority, and it wedges acorns and pecans into bark crevices to hammer open - a habit that makes it half woodpecker, half squirrel.

Like its relatives it is a cavity nester, chiseling a fresh hole most years and unwillingly donating old ones to titmice, wrens, and bluebirds - when starlings do not steal the new one first.

Common, loud, and handsome, it is one of those birds that makes the everyday backyard feel wilder than it is.