A natural pest control agent?
The Hindu
Woopeckers feed voraciously on insects, which sometimes are those that can quietly damage a tree. That is why Chennai should woo its black-rumped flameback back to its urban spaces
With its reputation as “woodworker” preceding it, a woodpecker may carry blood on its head that it never spilt. The uninformed and superficial observer may take every tap of its beak on wood for hole-making, territory-expanding self-aggrandisement. Having wrapped ts head neatly around the 80-20 pareto principle, the woodpecker makes its job easier by seeking out dead or partly weakened trees to drill its nest in, and invariably leaves the hole behind as a hand-me-down for other bird species to occupy and raise their young. More about this “altruism” later.
With almost every other tap, the woodpecker is prospecting for insects that occupy the furrows and crevices of the bark. It can also look for insects in damaged sections of trees, and may in the process even get rid of certain tree-boring insects what larvae can damage trees unseen. ‘Borer’ signifies one stage in the development cycle of these insects, when as larvae, they do the damage.
The black-rumped flameback occurs commonly in Chennai and surrounding areas, even in urban patches marked by a thick stand of trees, and a familiar snapshot is that of the bird at its post, diligently pecking away at a coconut tree. Scour eBird for black-rumped flameback sightings in Chennai, and the effort would dredge up addresses that connote the hubbub of city life. However, a black-rumped flameback sighting in urban spaces is hardly effortless, and there are obvious advantages in trying to turn this situation around. We will get to the how of it in a while.