From away to garden.com and Robinhood Radio.com, this is Away to Garden with Margaret Roach. You're a weekly invitation to dig in and grow. Today's guest didn't have to convince me to be wild about woodpeckers because I already am utterly so. His charismatic hardworking birds make oversized ecological contributions to the environments they inhabit and to the other creatures that they share them with. And the more you learn about them, the more astonishing they become. Paul Bannock's new book is Woodpecker, a year in the life of North American Woodpeckers, and he's here to tell us their story so more in a moment but first these messages. Underwriting support for a way to garden provided by Colorblends wholesale flower bulbs. A third-generation bulb company offering top-sized flower bulbs directly to landscape professionals and ambitious residential gardeners on the web, Colorblends.com. And by high-moving seeds, Wolcott Vermont professional quality Flower, and Urbal Seeds that are 100% organic and non-GMO project verified. On the web, HighMohingSeeds.com. And by Whiteflower Farm, offering a wide range of carefully selected and expertly grown garden plants. On the web, WhiteflowerFarm.com. Seattle-based Paul Bannock is an award-winning author and wildlife photographer focused on the natural history of North America and in particular on the conservation of birds and their habitat he's written several previous books about owls a special passion of his and now one on woodpeckers that's. Welcome, Paul. I'm so glad to talk to you.

Thank you very much.

It's my pleasure. Not that I like birds or anything. Yeah. And so I should say before we get started, that we'll have a book giveaway with the transcript of this show over on away to garden.com. The book is spectacular. I mean, it's so information-filled, but the pictures of course, your photography is just,

wow, because I don't know all those species.

What is it?

How many species are there in North America? 41 North American species? There are ones for 43, but we will ask two of them. So now we have 41. Right. And so a lot of them were unfamiliar to me. I just was, you know, staring at some of their beautiful little selves. So, and not so little selves in some cases. So, I read in the new book that was at your first bird or just your first woodpecker, when you were a boy, was a flicker, I think, is that was at the story? Well, it was the first bird to captivate me. Birds were, I appreciated them. I hesitate to say passively, but I appreciated them in the passing as with other animals until that northern flicker hopped towards me on the leaves of the backyard. And I realized it wasn't a robin as I saw it's poking out at belly and it's it's red crescent and it's red mullar. I was really stunned. Right. And you being in the northwest, I'm in the northeast, do you, I have, I think what's called the yellow shaft, the one where there's sort of, if you see it from beneath, you see yellow, a little bit of yellow. It is your red, a little bit of redish underneath or what's that? Yeah, the arse is the northern northern red shaft. Red shaft, yeah. Well, we, it's interesting because of where we are geographically, we get also what are called integrates between the red shaft and the yellow shaft. Because the two subspecies, they are in fact not different species, even though they look quite different. Are separated by the Eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains and more importantly by the Great Plains. And in that, shall we say, rain shadow of the Rocky Mountains, there's an Integrate Zone. And since the Rocky Mountains moved north and west, that Integrate Zone goes from Texas up to central BC, and flickers that are in snowy areas often migrate. And so those from British Columbia migrate down to Seattle and sometimes as far as Portland. So those of us in Seattle and Vancouver, BC can see integrates with all different kinds of mixes. Some of them are quite unreal looking. Oh, that's wonderful. That's very interesting to a woodpecker nut. So how many species are there where you live? We said there's 41 in North America. And when you define, I think North America in the book is like from the

Arctic to the Caribbean, is that correct? Is that correct? Yeah. Including the major Caribbean islands in Mexico. Yeah. In the Park near my house, there is the Northern flicker they heard it would pick up the Downey would pick up the Red breasted sap sucker. And the pillied would pecker. But within an hour and a half, you could also add in red nape sap sucker, Williams and sap sucker, blackback woodpecker, American three toned pecker, white headed woodpecker, and Lewis's woodpecker. So you could get 10 possibly even 11 species within an hour of Seattle. Wow, see here I have six who are always here because yet we don't have the red bellied sap sucker, we have the yellow and they are persistent. They're here all year round. Right where I am, they don't migrate. I think it's one of the woodpeckers that sometimes migrates, but they stay here. So I have them in the winter too and And then, and I might be wrong about the migration thing. But, but then there's across the river, that has river an hour away, there's the red headed. That's so that'd be the seventh one if I wanted to travel an hour. I could see, but not 10. Wow, cool. Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah, I know that Steven Schunk, who in 2016 wrote the book, Peterson reference guide to Woodpecker's in North America, he's called Woodpecker's a keystone species, meaning like that all important middle stone in an archway, there are an organism in an ecosystem that you remove it and stuff starts to fall apart. So can we talk about that? Some of the ways that that's true, because I think that's the thing that people may recognize a woodpecker and their backyard or in the park or whatever

but they may not know how important these creatures are. Yes, I'll go so far as to say that woodpeckers are the most important catalyst Enforced and systems with large cactuses in North America to take systems from being

new trees to being productive, complete ecosystems. And I'll make that bold statement and then say it is because they are a keystone species. And a keystone species being a species who changes its environment in a way that is inordinately greater than the numbers might suggest and positive for the diversity of wildlife. And that comes not just from the fact that a flicker in the Pacific Northwest will create a nest cavity who may serve as a nest cavity for 30 different animals, but also sap suckers who drill wells in the spring that serve the food needs of hummingbirds throughout North America when they migrate north and little other food is available to the fact that when they excavate cavities either for nests or roots, they help in the process of decomposing wood and returning nutrients to the soil and keeping the soil moist to the fact that they serve in some ecosystems as seed dispersers and pollinators. So, they do so much. But when you go, I think it's important when we think about ecosystems in North America to remember that every single one is a femoral, meaning constantly changing. Almost everyone starts off as an open area. Maybe it's a meadow or a savanna. Maybe it's a wildflower lot. And it fills in with trees, first usually things like alder, birch, or aspen. And then larger trees come in and maybe it's a conifer, like a pine tree or an oak tree. And then over time or with increased moisture or increased elevation, that fills in with furs and and other trees. And that what starts Susavanna becomes a woodland, meaning 25% canopy to 50% canopy, and then becomes a forest with more than 50% canopy. And then that forest is eventually disrupted by either fire or storms and opens up again and becomes an open habitat. And at each stage in that transformation, as the trees grow up, they don't have as many defects in them. But what the woodpeckers do is they detect those defects. They detect the insects. They take advantage of them. And in the process, make the habitat richer by providing homes, by providing food, and by with their calls and their noises and their glasses of color. It's pretty quite remarkable. Yeah, they are. You write in the book that in Spanish, in Spanish language that are called Paros Carpenteros. Carpentrobirds. So let's talk about how some of their very special physiological characteristics allow them to do all that sort of high powered woodworking without knocking themselves unconscious or worse. Yes, this is how the woodpeckers drum so hard on such solid surfaces has been

investigated with different conclusions for as long as I've been alive.

And NASA and NFL have looked into the characteristics of the woodpeckers school and what does it do?

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