This species is endangered because of extensive habitat loss.
Helpers are usually male offspring from previous breeding seasons.
Helpers participate in all activities, territorial defense, cavity excavation, incubating eggs, feeding nestlings, feeding fledglings and removing fecal sacs. Not only do they forage on pine, they excavate their roosting and nesting cavities in live pine. My study population is located in the Sandhills region of south-central North Carolina. This population has been closely monitored for twenty years by undergraduates, graduate students and research technicians affiliated with North Carolina State University. Cooperative breeding is a social system in which auxilliary adults participate in raising young.