1980 Walter D. Koenig Melanerpes formicivorus Fort Hunter Liggett, ~5 mi. N. Jolon, Monterey Co., Calif. 12 January Today, despite fair-poor weather conditions (rain fell most of the day), Ron Mumme, Larry Hawks, Nancy Toste, and I all traipsed out to Hunter Liggett to make a brief survey of the acorn and woodpecker situation there. We arrived in the area at 1130 and spent approximately 3-3½ hours checking out several areas. Basically, we looked for 1) signs of a good acorn crop, i.e. acorns on the ground, and 2) the state of granaries, i.e. what proportion of granaries appeared to be unused this winter. This latter aspect presumably gives an indication of how large the population is here, though I do not have any baseline with which to compare my figures. The 3 areas we checked were 1) an area near Hay Camp Road, 2) an area on Hay Camp Rd. out near San Miguelito Rd., and 3) an area on the San Miguelito Loop several miles down from Hay Camp Rd. A map with a general idea of where these places are will hopefully be found on the back. The entire area was quite wet! As for the acorn crop, it's clear that it was generally very good-excellent in the areas we checked. Quite a few Valley Oaks and at least a few Blue Oaks were had literally thousands of acorns still littering the ground below them. I didn't note any acorns still in the trees, but it's very likely that some Live Oaks still did have some acorns. In granaries I noted all acorns of all 3 of these species. Valley Oaks were definitely in excellent form this year here, and a fair proportion of trees had many acorns below them.