{"id":45136,"date":"2017-05-31T03:17:57","date_gmt":"2017-05-31T07:17:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/utnews.utoledo.edu\/?p=45136"},"modified":"2017-05-30T13:37:55","modified_gmt":"2017-05-30T17:37:55","slug":"researchers-study-red-headed-woodpeckers-to-solve-mysteries-of-charismatic-declining-species","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/05_31_2017\/researchers-study-red-headed-woodpeckers-to-solve-mysteries-of-charismatic-declining-species","title":{"rendered":"Researchers study red-headed woodpeckers to solve mysteries of charismatic, declining species"},"content":{"rendered":"

The red-headed woodpecker\u2019s feisty, loud personality fits the reputation of crimson-maned creatures, but the student researcher gently holding the bird bucked the trend.<\/p>\n

University of Toledo graduate student Kyle Pagel was calm, steady and methodical as he banded the woodpecker\u2019s legs with tiny, colorful identifying rings and looped a miniature backpack armed with a light-level geolocator and pinpoint-GPS around its legs.<\/p>\n

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UT graduate student Kyle Pagel held a red-headed woodpecker at Oak Openings Metropark in Swanton, Ohio. He is helping to conduct research on the bird to discover migration routes and why the species is in decline.<\/p><\/div>\u201cThe woodpecker is wearing it like a climbing harness,\u201d said Pagel, who is pursuing a master\u2019s degree in environmental sciences at UT. \u201cThe backpack is so thin and light that it doesn\u2019t inhibit flight or movement.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bird that flies freely once again from tree to tree isn\u2019t the scarlet-mohawked woodpecker regularly spotted in backyards. The red-headed woodpecker is about the size of a robin or 10 times larger than a warbler.<\/p>\n

This 70-gram, boldly patterned \u201cflying checkerboard\u201d is the seventh bird of its kind in a week that the UT team has examined at Oak Openings Metropark, taken a blood sample from, and outfitted with tracking technology to identify migration routes.<\/p>\n

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A photographer with the media took a photo of a red-headed woodpecker held by UT graduate student Kyle Pagel at Oak Openings Metropark.<\/p><\/div>\u201cThis is such as photogenic, popular species, it\u2019s surprising how little is known about them,\u201d Pagel said. \u201cIt\u2019s fascinating to work with such a charismatic bird.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pagel, along with Dr. Henry Streby, UT assistant professor of environmental sciences and ornithologist, launched a study this month of red-headed woodpeckers that could last up to 10 years and solve many mysteries about the species.<\/p>\n

For the next several weeks, the birding team\u2019s office will be located throughout the Oak Openings region, including sites along Girdham Road and Jeffers Road at Oak Openings Metropark in Swanton, Ohio. They expect this year to put tracking technology on 20 adult red-headed woodpeckers in Ohio and 20 in Minnesota, and on another 25 juveniles in each of those states.<\/p>\n

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At Oak Openings Metropark, Dr. Henry Streby set up a mist net used to gently collect red-headed woodpeckers so more can be learned about the vanishing species.<\/p><\/div>\u201cThey\u2019re in extreme decline, especially in the Midwest and Great Lakes area, maybe because of habitat loss and changes in their food supply,\u201d Streby said. \u201cWe\u2019re lucky to have Oak Openings just west of Toledo because it\u2019s a place where red-headed woodpeckers seem to be doing relatively well. We want to figure out what\u2019s working here and see if we can offer recommendations for habitat management elsewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

Every morning the team sets up mist nets and uses recorded calls, drums and decoy birds to attract the woodpeckers.<\/p>\n

Researchers are using blood samples to analyze DNA and hormones, as well as measure stress, immune system condition and aging.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The miniature backpack weighs about two grams and uses a light-level geolocator to gather data about when the birds go in and out of tree cavities each day. Pinpoint GPS, like on a cell phone, will tell the researchers where the birds traveled.<\/p>\n

\u201cRed-headed woodpeckers are inconsistent,\u201d Streby said. \u201cSome years they migrate for the winter, some years they don\u2019t. We want to know why. We also want to know where they go when they\u2019re not here on their breeding grounds. It could only be as far south as Kentucky or Tennessee. That is what we will learn for the first time when we recover the backpacks from the birds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Food availability, specifically acorns, is one of the factors being observed at Oak Openings this season, as well as reproductive success and genetics.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re studying all of this without knowing whether these woodpeckers are going to leave or not,\u201d Streby said. \u201cIt\u2019ll take several breeding seasons to be able to analyze their habits and help us know what needs to be done to conserve the species, especially in places where the populations are shrinking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Streby also has been studying golden-winged warblers for five years using light-level geolocators that weigh less than half a paper clip to track migration patterns. The songbirds, which are about the size of a ping-pong ball, travel thousands of miles once they leave their spring and summer nesting grounds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Environmental scientists are conducting research on the red-headed woodpecker to discover migration routes and why the species is in decline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":812,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,39,1,3,7],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45136"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/812"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45136"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45136\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45203,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45136\/revisions\/45203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.utoledo.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}