Woodpeckers common in Wimberley

A pesky raccoon pulled down my sunflower seed feeder, ate the seeds and demolished the feeder. That’s what I get for leaving it up overnight.

I got back in the bird-feeding game by hanging up a suet block inside a little plastic cage.

Voila! A golden-fronted woodpecker was soon feeding on the suet. I was delighted with the new arrival and could almost forgive the raccoon for my tribulations. Of course, I’ll have to remember to bring the suet in each night.

Woodpeckers are fairly common in our area, with red-bellied and golden-fronted being most frequently seen. We also often have ladder-backed and downy species. Less common are red-headed, hairy and pileated.

In all, there are 16 species in the woodpecker family in Texas. But one species is not only rare, but probably non-existent. That is the ivory-billed woodpecker. Hope springs eternal, but the last sighting of this species in Texas came in 1904, and most experts consider the bird extinct.

The golden-fronted I saw is primarily a Texas resident, with a lesser population in Oklahoma. The vast majority are found in Mexico and south to Nicaragua. The golden “front” that the bird’s name refers to is actually the bird’s forehead, the yellow area between the crown and the bill. Males also have a small, penny-sized red dot on the crown.

The bird’s stiff tail feathers help prop it up on the tree trunk and its sharp claws serve as lumberjack spikes.

It has an extra-long tongue for extracting bugs hiding in deep crevices and cracks. And its thick skull and special shock-absorbing neck muscles help keep it safe from the rapid pounding against wood.