Eight species of woodpeckers coexist in conifer forests in Foraging habitat and strategies differed. Only the pileated woodpecker excavated extensively in dead wood-particularly in downed wood and in grand fir forests. Northern flickers fed on the ground in open forests or grasslands. Live trees were used by Williamson's sapsuckers and white-headed woodpeckers. Sapsuckers drilled sapwells in Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menzeisii (Mirb.) Franco) and the white-headed woodpecker gleaned on ponderosa pine trunks and ate seeds. The remaining three species foraged by scaling, but the three-toed woodpecker fed exclusively in lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta Dougl. ex Loud.) stands. The hairy and black-backed woodpeckers scaled on similar trees in ponderosa pine stands. Hairy woodpeckers occasionally foraged on limbs and cones; black-backed woodpeckers used neither.Theoretically, nesting should have occurred when maximum food was available; however, hairy and black-backed woodpeckers, species most similar in their feeding habitat and strategies, fledged their young the earliest and the latest, respectively. This temporal separation could reduce competition.
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