Studying California's fastest drummers.Is a woodpecker's drumming as distinctive as its call? An ambitious statistical analysis of more than 3,000 recordings of California woodpeckers seems to have dashed that long-debated idea. Researchers found no consistent difference between the drumming of certain species such as ladder-backed and hairy woodpeckers The Hairy Woodpecker (Picoides villosus) is a medium-sized woodpecker. Adults are mainly black on the upper parts and wings, with a white back, throat and belly and white spotting on the wings. There is a white bar above and below the eye. . These California sound-alikes tend to live in different habitats, however, so they may be identifiable by their drumming, say Robert D. Stark of Ohio State University Ohio State University, main campus at Columbus; land-grant and state supported; coeducational; chartered 1870, opened 1873 as Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College, renamed 1878. There are also campuses at Lima, Mansfield, Marion, and Newark. in Columbus and his colleagues. Among woodpeckers likely to live in oak woodlands, for example, drumming distinguishes species with 94 percent accuracy Birders have heard most of the world's 214 woodpecker woodpecker, common name for members of the Picidae, a large family of climbing birds found in most parts of the world. Woodpeckers typically have sharp, chisellike bills for pecking holes in tree trunks, and long, barbed, extensible tongues with which they impale species drum, slamming their bills into trees, aluminum siding, and other hard surfaces to create a rapid-fire pattern of loud strikes. These birds do not seem to be hammering out a tree cavity, searching for food, or doing anything except making a lot of noise. California's speed drumming champ, the ladder-backed woodpecker The Ladder-backed Woodpecker (Picoides scalaris) is a North American woodpecker. The Ladder-backed Woodpecker is a small woodpecker about 16.5 to 19 cm (6½ to 7½ inches) in length. , bangs out some 28 beats a second. "It sounds like a machine-gun going off," Stark says. Previous studies have suggested that drummers are flirting with potential mates or proclaiming territorial boundaries, but recording enough drumming for a statistical analysis has been it daunting daunt tr.v. daunt·ed, daunt·ing, daunts To abate the courage of; discourage. See Synonyms at dismay. [Middle English daunten, from Old French danter, from Latin task. "I'd never recommend one person do it [alone] because they'd end up throwing the recording equipment off the Mountainside," says Stark's colleague Danielle J. Dodenhoff. While Stark sat with the equipment, she dashed toward the sound, trying to spot the woodpecker. Analyzing such variables as number of beats per second and length of a drumming session, the researchers found no differences between male and female birds, they report in the May Condor. R. Haven Wiley of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a public, coeducational, research university located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States. Also known as The University of North Carolina, Carolina, North Carolina, or simply UNC notes that field ornithologists This is a list of ornithologists who have articles, in alphabetical order by surname. See also . A-D
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