When famed naturalist William Bartram trekked through the wilderness of the southeastern United State in the 1770s, he found a “vast forest of the most stately pine trees that can be imagined.” An expanse of trees stretched before him like a placid green sea across immense savannahs, or like verdant ocean swells over gently undulating sand hills.

This was the longleaf pine habitat that once extended uninterrupted from eastern Texas to southeastern Virginia. An immense swath of forest that staked its claim in this corner of the world when glaciers retreated north at the end of the last Ice Age, and that flourished for millenia under the forest management practices of indigenous peoples. 

But the territory traversed by Bartram was a world already on the verge of vanishing. The infinite landscape of imagination proved to be finite in reality, eventually consumed to satisfy the needs of a rapacious empire and then the appetites of a hungry new country. First cleared for European settlers and their livestock, then pressed into service to provide pine tar and pitch for the British Navy, and then drained for the turpentine demanded by a growing America, these forests diminished from an estimated 90 million acres before colonization to 50 million acres by the dawn of the twentieth century to a mere 3.2 million acres by 1990, a decline of nearly 97 percent. 

But why this story? Why a requiem for the longleaf pine? Because this is a sadly all too familiar tale about the inextricable link between space and species. The history of this habitat is also the history of the animals exquisitely adapted to make it their home. The fate of the longleaf pine is their fate. And one such inhabitant of the land of the longleafs is the Red-cockaded Woodpecker, the Wake Audubon Society’s 2025 Bird of the Year. 

We look forward to taking a journey together over the coming months as we explore the habits and the habitat of this enchanting, imperiled little bird. Mirroring the precipitous decline of its pine habitat, the population of the Red-cockaded Woodpecker similarly plummeted. Around 15,000 birds exist today, less than one percent of their original numbers. The Red-cockaded being the only species of woodpecker to make its cavities in living pines, the lifecycle of the longleaf will be an integral part of the story. It will be a tale not only of the trees themselves, but also of fire and fungus, both critical parts of this ecosystem. 

And also a story about family. Red-cockadeds live in social groups consisting of breeding pairs and their offspring from several generations at once. Raising a brood is a cooperative endeavor and males in particular play essential roles, with the breeding male helping to incubate the eggs and juvenile males from previous seasons helping raise the current clutch. Together we will learn all about their fascinating social habitats. 

And finally, it will also be a story of conservation and cautious optimism. The Red-cockaded Woodpecker was officially identified as an endangered species in 1970, and became the first bird protected by the Endangered Species Act of 1973. Decades of concerted conservation efforts have increased the number of breeding groups from just 1,470 groups 50 years ago to 7,800 today. In November, the US Fish and Wildlife Service changed the Red-cockaded’s status from endangered to threatened. And while the upward population trend is worthy of celebration, some, including Audubon North Carolina, have expressed concerns that the change in protected status is premature. Join us as we consider over the course of this year what the future may hold for these birds. 

But let’s end our introduction and begin our year, with hope and excitement for our Bird of the Year. As we journey through the story of the Red-cockaded Woodpecker and its longleaf pine habitat in the months ahead, we’ll come to appreciate the delicate balance of nature and the resilience of life. We look forward to learning and exploring with you. 

Blog post written by Wake Audubon volunteer, Brittany Richards.