Tales from the Garden

Besides all the amazing "biological super powers" of woodpeckers that I wrote about in last month's article, each species also has a unique nest-building technique that is worthy of admiration: For instance, the favorite nesting place for Gila Woodpeckers is a living Saguaro cactus.  And as you can imagine, drilling a nesting cavity is a little different when you do it in a cactus than in a tree.  A Gila Woodpecker's bill is not strong enough to penetrate the ribs of a Saguaro, so it has to drill its nest cavity low on the Saguaro trunk, where the ribs are far enough apart to drill the entry hole between them.  Northern Flickers however, have a strong enough bill to drill directly through the ribs, so their nest cavities are typically the highest on the Saguaro trunk.   AND, no matter what woodpecker species is doing the nest-making, it actually takes a lot of advance planning.  The inner pulp of the Saguaro is very juicy with stored water, so woodpeckers have t...