Hi Kevin,
My experience has been that the male does most of the feeding once the
young birds have fledged, but not before.
The only time I have seen one bird stay away from the nest was when the
bird(s) was (were) aware
that they were being watched and they were concerned.
Personally, I would stop photographing this nest. Although you may not
feel you are stressing the woodpeckers, these big birds--because they realize
they are so noticeable--do feel the need to be especially wary. If you
are the cause of the female staying away, you are impacting their ability to
properly feed their young. It's better to be safe than sorry.
Sincerely,
Marlene
In a message dated 6/7/2011 11:27:00 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
birds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
Hello Friends,
The boys and I have been watching/photographing a pileated woodpeckers at a
nest in the JMU Arboretum over the last number of weeks. Between yesterday
and this morning, we spent between five and six hours, photographing from a
distance using long telephoto lenses. This is no different than we have
been doing periodically since the nest was discovered. However, during
these last five or six hours, only the male bird would feed the young.
I was beginning to wonder if something happened to the female, but one of
the boys noticed a second pileated woodpecker in the distance while the
male
had disappeared into the nest hole. Of course we cannot prove the second
woodpecker seen was the mate, but our question is whether it is typical for
the male to primarily feed the young? I would have assumed the feeding
responsibility would be a shared one, and we certainly photographed both
feeding the young in the past weeks. Have any of you ever noticed whether
feeding primarily falls to either the male or the female? And/or if there
is fluctuation between genders-male back/forth for hours, then female,
etc.?
Several weeks ago I thought it was roughly every other trip that the male
or
female would return.
Thanks for your input.
Kevin Shank
Rockingham County
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