Invasive pest lures rare woodpecker to western Chicago suburbs

The pileated woodpecker, a crow-sized black bird with white stripes and a flaming red crest rarely seen in northeastern Illinois, is returning to the western Chicago suburbs with help from an unlikely source: the emerald ash borer.

Genevieve BookwalterContact ReporterNaperville Sun

The pileated woodpecker, a crow-sized black bird with white stripes and a flaming red crest, is returning to the western Chicago suburbs with help from an unlikely source: the emerald ash borer.

"Spotting a pileated in DuPage County is 'a big deal,'" wrote John Cebula, outreach coordinator for the DuPage Birding Club, in an email to theNaperville Sun. "That said, the species has been seen and heard fairly regularly on the east side of the Morton Arboretum in Lisle for the past month or so."

At the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County, ecologist Brian Kraskiewicz has reported recent pileated woodpecker sightings near Naperville and other spots around the county.

"A few lucky folks have recently observed the elusive pileated woodpecker in woodlands at Danada and St. James Farm" forest preserves, Kraskiewicz said. The bird also was spotted in Blackwell, Waterfall Glen, Wood Ridge and West DuPage Woods forest preserves.

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Emerald Ash Borer May Have Met Its Match

Dec. 18, 2013 — Woodpeckers find emerald ash borers a handy food source and may slow the spread of this noxious pest, even ultimately controlling it, suggest researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago. Their findings are published online in the journal Forest Ecology and Management.

"We found we have a native predator that is able to detect and respond to this new rich food resource," said Charles Flower, UIC postdoctoral research associate in biology and first author of the study.

Since the emerald ash borer was first found feeding on trees in southeastern Michigan in 2002, this Asian invader has been responsible for the death of 30 million trees in the northeastern U.S. and Canada. In Chicago, where the emerald ash borer is already destroying trees, 17 percent of the street trees are ash -- 85,000 trees, with an estimated 300,000 more ash trees on private property.

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Increase in US woodpecker populations linked to feasting on emerald ash borer

October 2013

The scourge of forests, the emerald ash borer (EAB), is usually described with words like ‘destructive’ and ‘pest’. A recent study based on data collected by citizen scientists suggests that one more adjective might apply (at least from a bird’s perspective): ‘delicious’.

In a study published this week in the journal Biological Invasions, U.S. Forest Service entomologist Andrew Liebhold and Cornell University scientist Walter Koenig and others document how an EAB invasion fuelled a population boom for four species of birds in the Detroit area.

The four species of birds considered in the study ‘Effects of the emerald ash borer invasion on four species of birds’ included three woodpeckers that are known to forage on EAB-infested ash trees – the downy woodpecker, hairy woodpecker, red-bellied woodpecker – as well as the white-breasted nuthatch, a common bark-gleaning species that is also a potential predator of EAB. All four species are cavity-nesters and also stand to benefit from an increase in nesting habitat as trees are killed by EAB. The release is available online at:www.nrs.fs.fed.us/pubs/43937.

“The emerald ash borer has been massively destructive because most North American ash trees have little or no defence against it,” Liebhold said. “We can take heart that native woodpecker species are clearly figuring out that EAB is edible, and this new and widely abundant food source appears to be enhancing their reproduction.”

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Increase in Woodpecker Populations Linked to Feasting On Emerald Ash Borer

Aug. 8, 2013 — The scourge of forests, the emerald ash borer, or EAB, is usually described with words like "destructive" and "pest." A recent study based on data collected by citizen scientists suggests that one more adjective might apply, at least from a bird's perspective: "delicious."

In a study published this week in the journal Biological Invasions, U.S. Forest Service entomologist Andrew Liebhold and Cornell University scientist Walter Koenig and others document how an EAB invasion fueled a population boom for four species of birds in the Detroit area.

The four species of birds considered in the study "Effects of the emerald ash borer invasion on four species of birds" included three woodpeckers that are known to forage on EAB-infested ash trees -- the downy woodpecker, hairy woodpecker, red-bellied woodpecker -- as well as the white-breasted nuthatch, a common bark-gleaning species that is also a potential predator of EAB. All four species are cavity-nesters and also stand to benefit from an increase in nesting habitat as trees are killed by EAB.

"The emerald ash borer has been massively destructive because most North American ash trees have little or no defense against it," Liebhold said. "We can take heart that native woodpecker species are clearly figuring out that EAB is edible, and this new and widely abundant food source appears to be enhancing their reproduction."

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