While the population of red-headed woodpeckers is in serious decline throughout most of its range in the eastern half of the United States and in southern Canada, this unique bird is doing reasonably well in the Oak Openings Region.

IN PICTURES: University of Toledo looks into population drop of red-headed woodpeckers

And a couple of researchers from the University of Toledo intend to find out why.

They have recently launched a study of red-headed woodpeckers that is one of the most significant ever undertaken and is expected to take up to a decade to complete.

Their hope is to unravel some of the many mysteries surrounding the species, paving the way for strengthening its numbers. The UT team will employ some unusual accessories to gather the necessary data for their research.

They have been capturing the woodpeckers in Oak Openings Metropark west of Toledo and outfitting the birds with tiny color-coded identifying rings, a mini backpack that carries a light-level geolocator, and a GPS device that loops around its leg.

The backpack is minute enough as to not inhibit flight or movement, and its tracking technology will identify the woodpeckers’ migration patterns, a vital piece of information for the study.

“It’s surprising how little is known about them,” said graduate student Kyle Pagel, who is assisting UT ornithologist and assistant professor Henry Streby in the research.

Their plan calls for putting the tracking technology on 20 adult red-headed woodpeckers in Ohio and 20 in Minnesota this year and also outfitting another 25 juveniles in each of those states.

“This research should have been going on yesterday — it is kind of a shock that so little has been done,” Mr. Streby said. “The population study has been needed for a while, since the species has been in range-wide decline for as long as we have been doing breeding surveys, probably for over 50 years.”

Mr. Streby said that despite the relatively strong concentration found in Oak Openings, red-headed woodpecker numbers have fallen by about 80 percent in Ohio, while Michigan has lost 93 percent of its population of these birds over the last 50 years.

Mr. Streby is anxious to see what the research tells biologists, but he suspects habitat loss will be a primary factor in the decline of red-headed woodpecker populations.

“Habitat loss is almost always at the top of the list, and habitat degradation is also an issue,” he said. “But my suspicion is it will be a combination of a lot of things. I think it will be really complicated, and no solution so simple as to throw more habitat on the ground and see what happens.”

He suspects the chestnut blight that claimed most of the chestnut trees is likely one factor in the woodpecker population drop, and suburban sprawl is also contributing to the problem.

“The blight hurt, and humans are constantly encroaching on the woodpeckers’ habitat by putting neighborhoods up next to oak savannahs, so it’s not helping that people’s cats are roaming around, and some birds are also getting hit by cars,” he said.

“But I suspect we’ll find that it’s a big picture thing, and we’ll need to tie it all together. I’m sure it will be a combination of things we’ve considered, plus more we have not considered. No one factor can explain the 80 percent drop in the population. It has taken a ‘perfect storm’ to bring that about.”

Mr. Streby said the study is crucial since so little is known about the species.

“We probably should have been taking a look at them a long time ago, because the drop in their population is beyond alarming,” he said. “What we do know about them is shockingly little. We don’t know where they migrate to, we don’t know the juvenile survival rate, and you can’t base any management study without this information.”

The UT team has been capturing the birds in fine mesh nets, drawing blood samples, attaching the bands and identifying rings and the tracking technology, and then quickly releasing the woodpeckers at the site.

“Oak Openings is an amazing place, but what we don’t know is — is that the best place for these woodpeckers, or just the place where many of them go,” Mr. Streby said. “We hope to find the answer to that.”

Contact Blade outdoors editor Matt Markey at: mmarkey@theblade.com or 419-724-6068.

First Published June 25, 2017, 4:00 a.m.