Helping Out the Family, Especially in Good Times

[amborin]

Until they mate, acorn woodpeckers devote their time to gathering food for their relatives’ young

Helping Out the Family, Especially in Good Times



Acorn woodpeckers are industrious, cooperative birds that live in family groups. Each family has several “helper” woodpeckers that do not breed. These birds devote their time to gathering acorns and other food for the young.

Researchers were surprised to find that helpers are more beneficial in the spring after a good crop than in one after a poor harvest.

“It makes a lot of intuitive sense that the helpers are a lot more useful when conditions are bad,” said Walter Koenig, an ornithologist at Cornell University. “But in fact it seems to be exactly the opposite....

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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/23/science/23obbird.html?ref=science