Re: woodpecker reading

[Laurie Living <>]

Hi Lorne

A late note on the 'woodpecker' theme of a week or two ago.

Recently I uncovered a gem in a discount bookshop. A paperback called
'A Stillness in the Pines' by Robert McFarlane, Norton Press, New York, 1994.
His account of the ecology of the red-cockaded woodpecker, is sytematic and scientific as well as extremely readible, and provides another example of a species facing extinction in today's environment unless we understand what is going on.

The book compares the apparent and imminent extinction of the red-cockaded with the recent extinction of the ivory-billed woodpecker, and most of the other woodpeckers of the USA are referred to at length.

Both current and historical [ as far back as 1890s when nearly a thousand woodpeckers
were killed to examine stomach contents] to the banding experiments of today are documented and interpreted.

The book ends with a srtong call for conservation of the species. Great reading.

My copy cost $5 and if any woodpecker addicts out there are interested I could lokk out for other copies.

Cheers Laurie living