At 7 days old, the trio of red-cockaded woodpecker chicks -- blind and writhing about in the palm of the biologist's hand -- looked impossibly fragile.

But U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Eric Spadgenske worked quickly and carefully Monday morning, fixing color-coded bracelets of pink and yellow on the spindly legs of this next generation of the endangered species.

"There they are with all their new jewelry," Spadgenske said, showing them off before tucking them back into a coffee can and ascending the ladder to return them to the nest 22 feet up a skinny longleaf pine on an island on Lake Mitchell.

The banding expedition is part of long-term effort by Alabama Power, in partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, to preserve the critically endangered population of about 30 birds that make their home near the reservoir on land owned by the power company, a private individual, the state Forever Wild program and John Hancock Timber Resource Group.

Nationwide, there might be 16,000 red-cockaded woodpeckers stretched across 11 southeastern states.

Intensive efforts to preserve the cluster of colonies on Lake Mitchell were launched in the aftermath of a 2004 tornado that swept through the area toppling several of the nesting trees. Spadgenske, who heads the Service's Partners for Fish and Wildlife in the state, helped devise a recovery program that included installing dozens of artificial nests. It has since come to include a regular regime of prescribed burns to maintain the habitat, as well as frequent monitoring.

While Alabama Power is required to make efforts to preserve endangered species as a condition of its license to operate Mitchell Dam, Spadgenske gave the company credit for going beyond the minimum requirement.

"They've done a tremendous job. This is phenomenal habitat," he said. "The efforts of the power company have really saved this population."

Among the earliest species added to the endangered species list, the woodpecker's decline tracks very closely with the disappearance of the tree where it prefers to make its home: the longleaf pine, Alabama's state tree that once dominated from the coastal plain to the edges of the Appalachians. The red-cockaded is just one of 29 threatened or endangered species imperiled by the virtual disappearance of the longleaf dominated ecosystem that once covered an estimated 90 million acres. After being cut for its valuable, rot-resistant timber, most long-leaf forests were replanted with faster growing species like the loblolly pine. Longleaf was also adapted to and dependent on frequent wildfires, which are now for the most part controlled.

In those rare places where a mature canopy of mature longleaf survives and fire still burns, the forest floor is park-like savanna, where more than 600 different species of plant can occur: a host of native warm season grasses and legumes that provide ideal habitat for wild turkey, bobwhite quail, white-tailed deer and fox.

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Red-cockaded woodpecker gets care and protection in Alabama (with video and gallery)