Babies Galore at Monte Cristo
Kristin Purdy
I visited the Monte Cristo Range in Cache and Rich Counties today to check on an AMERICAN THREE-TOED WOODPECKER nest cavity I’ve been enjoying since June 8. At least one male baby remains in the cavity and is now big enough to stick his head all the way out of the hole. He should be fledging soon and he could even be the last one to go. Neither parent visited in the total of an hour or so that I watched the tree. I wasn’t expecting to see the adult female, but thought I’d see the adult male. Last week, I had the privilege of showing a friend his lifer ATTW on his 80th birthday when friend, friend’s wife and I went to Monte for the expressed purpose of filling this gaping hole in friend’s 2,600-bird life list. The adult male ATTW came to the cavity multiple times as we watched and friend even had the chance to count woodpecker toes in the scope from just 30 feet away. The male baby was only visible in the shadowy interior of the cavity a week ago, but it was just light enough to see that baby had a yellow patch on his fore-crown. Today his yellow patch was a screamin’ beacon when he stuck his head all the way out of the hole. Of course, there was plenty of plain old screaming for the ears as juvenile baby woodpeckers NEVER. QUIT. SCREAMING.
I also visited Monte Cristo Campground to look for other woodpeckers and heard WILLIAMSON’S SAPSUCKERS the minute I stepped out of my truck near campsite #35. I just followed the soft “churring” call note to two baby girls, obviously fledged very recently, and then watched them and their baby-daddy as he found them multiple times and delivered the groceries to their loud and squeaking baby maws. Also in this area was an adult male Hairy Woodpecker, but I could tell this male wasn’t feeding babies as this Hairy wasn’t harried. He was foraging far too leisurely to be attempting to satisfy bottomless pit teenagers, and I guessed his brood probably fledged a while ago. I saw him several times on different trees in the area of campsite #35 as well.
At one point, I caught a glimpse of a black-and-white woodpecker with a white throat pounding the daylights out of the bark on a venerable old snag at the campsite (as opposed to a venerable old hag at the campsite—that was me) where one of the fledgling Williamson’s was, and I held my breath to see if a female Hairy Woodpecker was going to feed her. Two surprises were in store. First, the Hairy turned into an adult male ATTW, and second, the adult male Williamson’s came swooping in with a beak full of ants and fed his baby girl about three feet from the Three-toed. The male Hairy later used this tree as well, so I guess venerable old snags get the stamp of approval, or the pounding of approval, from adult male woodpeckers. I also saw an adult male baby-daddy Northern Flicker with his baby girl so young that she still had gray downy feathers sticking up out of her scapulars like lacy angel wings. Instead of using the snag, they landed on an aspen branch about 40 feet away.
Other parent-baby interaction in the campground today included Yellow-rumped Warblers in just about every clump of trees. Here’s another species where the babies just won’t shut up. Their voices were the predominant ones of the day, and the babies had no trouble following the parents as they hover-gleaned from the ground to spruce branches. I also saw an adult Chipping Sparrow hauling a fat, green, pendulous caterpillar in its beak looking like a tom turkey with a drooping wattle. Adults carrying bugs is a sure sign of feeding nestlings. Finally, a Hermit Thrush carried to its hidden baby a worm so lengthy I thought the thrush was carrying nesting material. But I waited after the adult exited the site to see a perched young’un seemingly too little to be out of the nest struggling with the worm suspended out of one side of its beak by about three inches. The baby continued to gulp best as it could and it made progress, the worm slowly retracting into the gullet. Finally, the profile of the baby’s face showed a two-part beak and the worm still sticking out to the tips of the beak. The baby perched on a low branch quietly for a long time with its beak open, perhaps in a reverie over the huge meal it had just consumed.
Monte Cristo Campground is located at about mile 47.7, SR-39.
Kris