How Kisatchie Forest rangers are helping an endangered species thrive

Two seven-day-old red cockaded woodpecker chicks chirp loudly when they hear Cody Austell, U.S. Forest Service wildlife technician, outside the artificial cavity in the longleaf pine tree in Kisatchie National Forest where they are nestled.

They think he's their mother there to feed them, he says. The cavity is 20 feet up, and Austell used two ladders and a harness to reach it. On this day he and U.S. Forest Service Biologist Steve Shively are banding the babies.

Austell carefully extracts each chick and places them in a pouch that he lowers to Shively. He'll stay up on the ladder while Shively weighs and bands them.

The whole process from extraction to banding to putting the chicks back in the cavity needs to be done quickly but carefully. The birds have no feathers, and their eyes haven't opened yet. They are vulnerable outside their cavity.

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Why are these birds important to the ecosystem?

Red cockaded woodpeckers are listed as an endangered species by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services, said Shively

There are an estimated 400 red cockaded woodpeckers living in Kisatchie National Forest with 280 paired up and the remainder being their offspring.

These birds are a species on which other wildlife depend. Their cavities also provide shelter to other birds and mammals like squirrels. And they control insect populations.

Shively carefully removes the chicks from the pouch and proceeds to place bands on their tiny left legs.

"We've got a program that generates all the band combinations, so we're going to put three on the left leg so we can identify the bird individually," said Shively. "Or if we're going to move the bird, from distance we'll be able to identify it."

Their legs are about the size that they are going to be as they get older, so the bands won't get tight as they grow. Ideally, they like to band chicks in the 5-10 day range, so at seven days old, these chicks fall in the perfect age range. If they are older than 10 days, their eyes are open and they tend to duck the lasso that pulls them out of the cavity. And there's a chance of injury or damage to their new feathers if they put up a fight.

"We band the chicks when they're young so that in the fall, we'll be able to recognize the juvenile birds from the adults by the colors of the bands that we put on their legs," said Shively. "And what we'll do after we banded the birds is we'll come back right before they fledge, right before they leave the cavities."

When they return, they'll use a pole with a camera attached to check the cavity to see if the chicks survived. They'll also be able to tell the birds' genders. The young males will have a bright red patch of feathers on top of their heads and the females will have all black on top of theirs, said Shively. Grown males have a small red streak across their heads, like an ornament, or a cockade, that used to be worn on a hat.

He then weighs each bird individually by placing them in a bag attached to a scale. He carefully places them back in the pouch and attaches it to the rope. Austell pulls it up and puts the chicks back in their cavity.

It took them three days to check the entire forest. They found 95 nests with eggs out of a potential 140 that had 1-7 eggs each. Austell said it's "potential" because not all birds successfully breed.

Some could have already hatched, and they'll need to determine how old they are.

"The birds start laying eggs about mid-April," said Shively. "The first week of May is usually when we start finding something that can be banded."

This family group is a designated donor population, he said. In the fall, they plan to translocate birds to other areas to increase populations and genetic diversity.

But they need to move the right birds from the group, said Shively. They don't want to remove the mother or father. But there is a surplus of birds in this large population and a limited amount of cavities within the group's area. Each bird lives in their own cavity — even the parents. Some in the family will find a nearby cavity while others will fly off to find one elsewhere.

If the two breeder birds produce males, Shively said, they have to leave at least one in the group because juvenile males care for the next generation of birds.

The female red cockaded woodpeckers are kicked out by the breeder female by the time the next breeding season comes around because she doesn't want any competition, said Shively.

"And so we could take any females," he said.

In August they'll meet to discuss the bird populations and how many to accept and how many to donate.

Then in October, they'll take the juvenile birds they banded from this group and relocate them to a new area that also has artificial cavities. A male and female will be placed in separate inserts overnight with a screen covering the openings to keep them from flying off in the middle of the night, explained Shively. In the morning, the screens come off.

"They fly out of the holes," he said. "They meet each other, they fall madly in love, maybe, and start their own family."

And the circle of life begins again.

Longleaf pine habitats are home for woodpecker families

The longleaf pines of the Southeast are the prime habitat for the red cockaded woodpeckers. They need old growth trees over 100 years old in order to make their own natural cavities but there aren't many, said Shively.

"They tend to need really, large old trees usually that are infected with a fungus called red heart that makes the interior of the tree, the heartwood, easier to excavate," explained Shively. "Most of all these trees here were cut down in the '30s so there aren't as many old trees."

But humans, he said, have learned to help the birds by putting artificial cavities in young trees that aren't as easy to for the animals to open.

A block of wood is taken out of the tree and the artificial cavity inserted. Tree sap is painted around it to copy natural hollows. The sap discourages predators, like snakes, from entering.

"And the birds use them very readily," said Shively. They like to line them with woodchips. "We're able to increase the population by increasing the number of cavities."

The more cavities there are for a family group, that means more male juveniles can stay to help with the next generation. White bands mark trees that have artificial cavities. Each tree has a metal tag with a number so they know which compartment of Kisatchie the tree is in and which group of red cockaded woodpeckers live there.

It also lets them know where the birds are in case they are doing a thinning operation so those operating equipment will know not to scrape the tree and to stay away from it during nesting season, said Shively.

Woodpecker "families" live in a tightly grouped cluster of trees.

"We are monitoring and inspecting 140 potential breeding groups," said Austell. It takes three days to annotate their activities.

The Kisatchie National Forest manages the habitat for the red cockaded woodpecker by thinning the trees. The birds like wide-open spaces so they can see and fly.

"They don't like pine trees that are too close together, too dense," said Shively.

To keep the underbrush down, the Forest Service conducts controlled burns.

"If you don't burn, the underbrush grows up and all these little hardwood trees — sweet gum and maples — get up to the level of the cavity," said Shively. "The birds really don't like that. It enables predators to get into their holes more easily. And they just like to be able to fly freely between trees."

This article originally appeared on Alexandria Town Talk: How Kisatchie Forest rangers are helping red cockaded woodpeckers thrive