Meet the Nuttalls: An Avian Tragedy
“Nature is not nice but she is amazingly efficient!“ — “Rick”
Story by David A. Laws
Photographs by Jean and David Laws and Linda Abbey
“David. Hurry, you really don't want to miss this."
I jumped from my seat and rushed to the window. My wife pointed to a woodpecker on the trunk of a big-leaf maple tree about ten feet from the house.
Jean, a member of the Monterey Bay Audubon Society and an enthusiastic birdwatcher, recognized it as a Nuttall’s woodpecker: “You can tell by the black and white ladder-back feather markings. And the red patch on the crown says it's a male."
We see (and hear) many Acorn woodpeckers here in Pacific Grove, but Nuttall’s (Dryobates nuttalli) are not as numerous at this spot just a few hundred yards from the ocean. They are more common in drier inland regions of California.
No more than eight inches high, the tiny creature pounded its sharp beak into the wood with all the intensity and volume of a machine gun. Wood chips flew in all directions as the bird excavated a nesting hole about 15 feet above the ground.
Stuck at home in the depths of the COVID pandemic and with Jean suffering from her third bout of cancer, watching this real-life miracle of nature evolve over the next few weeks promised welcome relief from doom-scrolling on the internet and endless dystopian Netflix dramas.
So we set up a camera on a tripod focussed on the ever-deepening hole. Together with our wildlife-photographer neighbor, Linda Abbey, we captured hundreds of fleeting images of day-to-day progress in the birth of a new generation of Nuttall's woodpeckers.
By April 4th, Mr. Nuttall had completed the bulk of his work. Now the hard part — he must entice a mate who approves of his handiwork! Three days later, Mrs. Nuttall arrived to inspect the property. Apparently, she was not overly impressed: she checked inside but left after only a few minutes.
Mr. Nuttall set to work harder than ever. The pile of wood chip debris at the base of the trunk grew deeper. After another two weeks of frenetic activity by her partner, the female returned. She decided that the nest was now acceptable, and took up residence.
Shortly after Mrs. Nuttall returned, the high-pitched scream of contractors' building tools inundated the neighborhood for several days. Although the workers reported seeing them, we did not catch sight of either bird for a week and feared the noise had driven them away.
Then, on May 7th, we were relieved to capture images of Mr. Nuttall feeding his mate through the nest hole. Presumably, she was now sitting on a clutch of eggs.
The prospective parents shared incubation duty and the chicks hatched shortly after. Both birds spent the next couple of weeks busy all day hunting and delivering tasty grubs and insects to their offspring. They would fly off for about ten minutes, return with beaks brimming with ants and grubs, deposit the bounty, and immediately leave again in their never-ending quest to fill the gaping mouths.
By May 18th, when the infants' cries were loud enough to be heard some distance from the nest, Jean noticed a California Scrub-Jay exploring the tree. It moved steadily up and down the branches, seeking the source of the sounds. We worried that the chicks could be in danger but there was nothing we could do to protect them.
As darkness fell on the evening of May 21st, I stood outside listening to the cacophony of infant chirping just a few feet above my head. I could distinguish at least three voices but there may have been more. By the time I stepped back inside, their chorus dominated all other sounds of the night. Jean said she thought they sounded strong enough to fledge within the next couple of days.
In his 1923 book, The Birds of California, William Leon Dawson wrote on page 1002 this colorful characterization of the Nuttall's woodpecker's protective instinct: "The male D. nuttalli takes his turn at incubating, and he is invariably, in my experience, the more valiant of the two in defense of the young. … If you ever require a symbol of doting solicitude, picture a male Nuttall's woodpecker thrusting his head into a dark hole to make sure that nothing has spilled out of it since his last inspection, which occurred exactly three seconds ago. Nothing could happen, you know, but then again, it might." [1]
Sadly, it did. I looked out early in the morning of May 22nd to see a disoriented Mr. Nuttall climbing up and down the tree trunk vainly searching for his missing family. He delivered a beak full of struggling ants to the nest, but all was silent. And Mrs. Nuttall was nowhere to be seen. At the base of the trunk, a pile of tiny feathers revealed the depth of the tragedy.
I climbed a ladder to inspect the scene of the crime. A hungry critter had opened a new hole through decaying wood on the opposite side of the trunk to gain access to the nest from the rear and killed the chicks: the likely perpetrator — the marauding Scrub-Jay.
Late in December, Jean and I recalled the joy of watching the extraordinary dedication of the Nuttall's to the task of raising their family. And the despair and darkness that invaded our lives following the loss.
"I know won't be there to see them, but I wonder if they will try again next year?" Jean asked.
My beautiful wife of 46 years passed away a few days later.
On March 21st of 2022, a familiar raucous call and insistent drumming of beak on wood distracted me from my writing. I glanced through the window; Mr. Nuttall had returned.
On March 24th, Linda confirmed my sighting. "The male has been back on three separate days, and a female joined him one day. I didn't hear him today, but I keep hoping."
I hope so, too. But after my devastating personal and avian losses of last year, I'm not ready to risk watching another tragedy unfold. I plan to keep the blinds firmly closed on that window for a while.
[1] The Birds of California: A Complete, Scientific and Popular Account of the 580 Species and Subspecies of Birds Found in the State by William Leon Dawson of Santa Barbra. (Volume Two) South Moulton Company (1923)
Several readers have asked, “Who is the Rick credited in the opening quote?” I overheard this in a conversation recently but as there is more than one avid birder called “Rick” in the Monterey Bay area I cannot offer a more specific attribution.
