Contributor at NaturePlayTrips. Thank you. Having kids has allowed me to re-experience childhood, sometimes through their perspectives; other times right along with them.
They grow up so fast so those moments are always special. Thanks, Hiking Mama! I love being to explore with friends who have some official training in things like plants and science.
Well said! I do happen to have degrees in science and still, I am far from knowing all the answers. Woodpecker does not bother much with the education of her children so the busy a tapper most likely learned his skills from his father. Telephone poles are rather new in the world and, of course, they are made from trees.
They are treated with chemicals to keep out insects but the woodpecker does not know this. He attacks the pole just as he attacks a tree, hoping to find a grub or bug and sometimes he is lucky. Who's Online. We have 55 guests and no members online. User Menu. Even the creosote coating on most phone poles doesn't stop them. A pileated woodpecker with a red crested head can be 18 inches long.
Crawford, with his study funded by Union Electric Company in Missouri, is trapping and banding some of the young birds to determine if they are "imprinting" on the poles. Another possibility is that power lines create a humming, sometimes crackling vibration known as a corona.
The theory is that woodpeckers interpret this as the presence of insects in the wood. Because the birds like to excavate their own holes, any artificial sites are usually snubbed. You can go for 10 miles on a route and find no holes, and then for three miles, with the same kind of wood, every pole has a hole. BIRD concluded that northern flicker woodpeckers may have lost their nests to pushy starlings before flicker females could lay their eggs.
Scientists said the flickers then became desperate. The orange color and texture of the insulation on the tank is similar to the soft surface of palm trees often inhabited by flickers. Deterrent tactics now include predatory bird calls over the public address system, plastic decoys, water hoses, TV surveillance, reflective mylar streamers, and observers blasting air horns. At one point, NASA trained a video camera on the birds and timed one woodpecker hammering away for eight minutes straight.
Such determination can have dramatic effects on the life of a phone pole. Telephone poles usually last from 25 to 35 years in most areas. But near forests and semirural areas, woodpeckers can cut the lifespan down to five years or less. Macy considered the mesh technique used in Montana, but rejected it as too impractical. We couldn't afford to put mesh around each pole. What Macy and other utility managers do now is pump epoxy resin into the cavities after they have been filled with small chunks of wood.
Steel spikes are sometimes driven at angles through the pole to hold it together. But steel and fiberglass poles are much lighter than wood, less expensive to ship, and easier to install. Life expectancy is expected to be as high as 80 years. The poles don't need chemical treatments and will not burn. The woodpecker may have met his match. Already a subscriber?
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