SHORELINES

24 a p c s hor e l i n e s.c om | 2016 Vol :2 fill breeding vacancies and you may lose an active cluster that year because you've lost that year's reproduction." Mating season is from April to June. Females lay four eggs in the cavity and both females and males incubate them. Eggs are laid over four days and it takes 11 days for them to hatch. The hatchlings eat bugs – ants, beetle larvae, spiders, roaches, worms – that are caught by the parents on the side of the pine trees (and live in the grass areas crucial to the habitat). Biologists climb ladders to remove the week-old nestlings using flexible tubing that is slid into the cavities. "Once I get the birds to the bottom of the tree, I have prearranged some unique color combinations for each bird and an aluminum band that has a unique band that is recorded at the bird-banding lab in Maryland so that we can identify it and follow it through its life span," said Spadgenske. When banding is complete, the biologists return the nestlings to the cavities. The birds can then be tracked through field glasses without ever being caught again. Red-cockaded woodpeckers can live up to 15 years in the wild. However, most of them don't make it through their first summer. If they make it past that first year, many will live five to eight years. "At the end of nesting season, we will document the number of birds that live at each cluster and, if the number of birds exceeds the number of cavities, then we will install artificial cavities to ensure that each bird will have a place to live," said Chad Fitch, Environmental Affairs specialist at Alabama Power. The efforts of Alabama Power, ADCNR and FWS are paying dividends. Alabama's red-cockaded woodpecker population has grown to about 250 breeding groups and there are some 5,000-6,000 groups rangewide. "We make stewardship a priority and are very proud to partner with ADCNR and FWS on this effort," said Fitch. "We want to enhance the red-cockaded woodpecker habitat but also enhance the longleaf pine ecosystem. This partnership enables us to do that." Each year, the teams evaluate the birds' progress and the team's best practices to continue improving conditions for the red-cockaded woodpecker and the longleaf pine ecosystem. "Alabama Power is a critical partner in endangered species recovery," Spadgenske said. "If Alabama Power wasn't an active participant in the management of this bird, they would have been lost and we would have lost these birds forever. They have been an integral partner and taken on a large load in helping manage these birds and their habitat." — ALLISON WESTL AK E Left: Photo by aRden WaRd – To track the hatchlings, the birds are tagged with color coded bands and then placed back in their nests. Right: Photo by aRden WaRd – Chad Fitch, Environmental Affairs specialist with Alabama Power, led a team to see the survey of hatchlings on Lake Mitchell this past spring.

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