Preparing for Winter 2024-2025: The Acorns vs. the Jays, Redux . . .

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Every fall Mt Lemmon's full time residents get ready for winter. For you and me this means filling the propane tank, splitting wood for the fire, and stocking up on canned goods. Although avian residents don't need to worry about a propane delivery, they do need to stock up on food. For the Acorn Woodpecker this means putting away acorns in safe spots where they can be easily accessed during cold months, while also eating as much as possible. 

Fall comes every year and this blog is now 9 years old.  9 falls. 9 falls which are really very, very similar from an avian perspective. So this post is really a review, a fall revival if you will, with some new images, and hopefully a new perspective, but with links to three prior fall posts, which should provide more depth and a slightly different perspective. 

Birds in the fall have breeding and molting behind them, and now need to work on finding food. Predators are always a risk, but in the scramble to gather calories, the other threat, competitors, looms large. Enter the Steller's Jay . . . . .

But first, Acorn Woodpeckers.

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Acorn Woodpeckers store up for the coming winter.

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Acorn Woodpeckers live year round in the Pacific Northwest and all the way south to Columbia, South America. The only migratory population is a small one in the Huachuca Mountains here is SE Arizona where there are not enough acorns to store for the winter, necessitating migration into the Sierra Madre in Mexico. 

Acorn Woodpeckers live in large communities, sharing many functions, including rearing the young and gathering and storing food. 

In the images above and below, we see a granary tree, a dead tree that the Acorn Woodpeckers use for storing acorns. The birds excavate holes just the right size for acorns spaced out very systematically in the tree. Once placed, the acorns dry out over time, shrinking and loosening in their holes. So, Acorn Woodpeckers not only gather and store the nuts, but must periodically check their stock, moving acorns from one hole to another to make sure they don't fall out or become easy pickings for squirrels. The woodpecker here seems to be working the stock to keep it secure. This tree is just west of Middle Sabino Road in Summerhaven.

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For more on Acorn Woodpeckers putting up supplies for the winter and rotating their stock, see this post:  October 2019 on Mt Lemmon. The photo to the right is from the post, and is a live link, click on the title above or on the photo to go to the link.  

Fast forward five years to 2024, and below we see an Acorn Woodpecker gathering up another favorite, peanuts in the shell, this time provided by the author/photographer. Note that all the peanuts are processed for birds and obtained at Wild Birds Unlimited in Tucson.

The woodpecker below has grabbed a peanut, and is ready to take off.

For the photo geeks: All the images from 2024 were shot with a Canon R5 Mark II with the electronic shutter at ~30 frames/second, in the Pre-capture mode.  This feature constantly records 1/2 second of images prior to the shutter being fully depressed. For birds, 1/2 second is just about right, allowing for the photographer's reaction time. The full sequence of shots shown here was 22 images over 1 second or less. I edited them down to these three. 

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Below, peanut in his bill, we see a flash of white on the flight feathers and the white rump and black tail. Without the pre-capture mode it is almost impossible to photograph these birds in flight. They are very fast, and move quickly without much warning.

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Below, our male pumps his wings to get some lift, depressing the tail. Birds fly as efficiently as possible, and when taking off, if possible they drop off their perch to use gravity to gain speed and lift. 

We know this is a male because the bright white forehead meets the red cap in a straight line. The female has a black band between the forehead and the cap.

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Acorn Woodpeckers often gather food in teams, one of their many community projects. When I first put the peanuts out, it did not take long for a female to find the goodies. However, she did not dive in and grab a peanut, rather she sat on a high pine tree branch and called, "wacka-wacka-wacka" to her mates and waited until another two to three arrived. The team then began to set up a conveyor line, grabbing the peanuts one at a time and either flying off into the distance, or back to the branch to peck it open. 

Below, a female has a peanut on one of her favorite perches above the feeder, and gets ready for work! 

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Above, she pulls her head back, feet firmly attached to the branch and braced with her strong tail, and below, drives her bill into the peanut shell. 

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Above and below, the action is repeated, this time putting shell fragments into the air. 

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And below, coming up with a peanut. 

Although collecting and storing food is a key activity in October, it takes energy, and eating enough is essential. So raiding the harvest is acceptable. Birds need to be at top weight and strength going into the winter. 

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Steller's Jays like peanuts too . . . . .

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Steller's Jays are year round residents of the mountainous west, from the islands off of Alaska down to Central America. Range map is to the right. They were first described by Georg Steller, a German naturalist traveling on a Russian explorer's ship in 1741. 

Steller's Jays are opportunistic foragers, eating almost anything they can find, including seeds, nuts, and other bird's eggs and nestlings. They are a dominant predator of the Western/Cordilleran Flycatchers who breed on Mt. Lemmon.

In August of 2018 I put out some peanuts in the shell to see who would come in to feed. I caught a Steller's Jay grabbing a peanut and very carefully burying it beneath a layer of pine needles on the ground, then marking the site by placement of a rock! For more on this adventure see the post from August 2018: A Steller's Jay and a Peanut: Saving for the future in Summerhaven.

Fast forward to October  2024, six years later, and SURPRISE!  Jays still like peanuts! 

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Although Steller's Jays are aggressive predators, they will not confront an Acorn Woodpecker. When facing off "mano-a-mano" the Acorn dominates and the Steller's retreats to the sidelines. 

So during the peanut buffet on October 11th, while the Acorns converted our mountain backyard to a cafeteria line, one Steller's Jay sat off to the side, waiting for his chance. Although Steller's Jays will forage slowly and methodically, in this case our jay decided to take the "plunge and grab" approach, sitting on the feeder pole until the time was right, and then diving for the peanut. He did this repeatedly.

Above our jay is perched, below he dives for the goodies. 

For the photo geeks: This series was captured with a Canon R5 Mark II, electronic shutter on Pre-capture mode. The whole sequence took 2 seconds or less. 

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This dive allows us to see the pattern and coloration of the wings and tail. 

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A quick grab in the frame above and a rapid spring back into the air,  below.

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Our jay repeated this sequence and each time disappeared into the distance with a peanut. He wanted the peanuts, but did not want to mess with the Acorn Woodpeckers. 

Acorns can be very aggressive with potential predators. In April of 2021 we were in Cave Creek Canyon in the Chiricahua Mountains getting photos of birds at the Sunny Flat Campground (The Chiricahua Mountains and Cave Creek Canyon April 2021: Part III, Sunny Flat). We captured a Cooper's Hawk on the prowl in the low understory when suddenly two to five Acorn Woodpeckers mobbed the Cooper's and drove him north out of the canyon. They pursued him for some distance. Unfortunately I was not able to get photos of the pursuit. 

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For more on an Acorn-Steller face off over peanuts see the post from September 2022, September: The Acorn Woodpecker and the Steller's Jay Getting Ready for Winter . . . . .

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That's all for now ! More coming soon.

​Happy Trails! 

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