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LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS
Arthur Cleveland Bent

Life Histories of North American Birds of Prey. (20931-8, 20932-6) Two-volume

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Life Histories of North American Woodpeckers. (21083-9)

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LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN WOODPECKERS

LIFE HISTORIES
OF NORTH AMERICAN
WOODPECKERS

by

Arthur Cleveland Bent

Dover Publications, Inc.
New York

Published in Canada by General Publishing Company, Ltd., 30 Lesmill Road, Don Mills, Toronto, Ontario.

Published in the United Kingdom by Constable and Company, Ltd., 10 Orange Street, London WC 2.

This Dover edition, first published in 1964, is an unabridged and unaltered republication of the work originally published in 1939 by the United States Government Printing Office, as Smithsonian Institution United States National Museum Bulletin 174.

Standard Book Number: 486-21083-9
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 64-20879
Manufactured in the United States of America
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ADVERTISEMENT

The scientific publications of the National Museum include two series, known, respectively, as Proceedings and Bulletin.

The Proceedings series, begun in 1878, is intended primarily as a medium for the publication of original papers, based on the collections of the National Museum, that set forth newly acquired facts in biology, anthropology, and geology, with descriptions of new forms and revisions of limited groups. Copies of each paper, in pamphlet form, are distributed as published to libraries and scientific organizations and to specialists and others interested in the different subjects. The dates at which these separate papers are published are recorded in the table of contents of each of the volumes.

The series of Bulletins, the first of which was issued in 1875, contains separate publications comprising monographs of large zoological groups and other general systematic treatises (occasionally in several volumes), faunal works, reports of expeditions, catalogs of type specimens, special collections, and other material of similar nature. The majority of the volumes are octavo in size, but a quarto size has been adopted in a few instances in which large plates were regarded as indispensable. In the Bulletin series appear volumes under the heading Contributions from the United States National Herbarium, in octavo form, published by the National Museum since 1902, which contain papers relating to the botanical collections of the Museum.

The present work forms No. 174 of the Bulletin series.

Alexander Wetmore,

Assistant Secretary, Smithsonian Institution.

Washington, D. C., March 22, 1939.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

This is the twelfth in a series of bulletins of the United States National Museum on the life histories of North American birds. Previous numbers have been issued as follows:

• 107. Life Histories of North American Diving Birds, August 1, 1919.
• 113. Life Histories of North American Gulls and Terns. August 27, 1921.
• 121. Life Histories of North American Petrels and Pelicans and their Allies, October 19, 1922.
• 126. Life Histories of North American Wild Fowl (part), May 25, 1923.
• 130. Life Histories of North American Wild Fowl (part), June 27, 1925.
• 135. Life Histories of North American Marsh Birds, March 11, 1927.
• 142. Life Histories of North American Shore Birds (pt. 1), December 31, 1927.
• 146. Life Histories of North American Shore Birds (pt. 2), March 24, 1929.
• 162. Life Histories of North American Gallinaceous Birds, May 25, 1932.167. Life Histories of North American Birds of Prey (pt. 1), May 3, 1937.
• 170. Life Histories of North American Birds of Prey (pt. 2), August 8, 1938.

The same general plan has been followed, as explained in previous bulletins, and the same sources of information have been utilized. The nomenclature of the 1931 check list of the American Ornithologists’ Union has been followed, but it has seemed best to continue in the same order of arrangement of families and species as given in the old check list (1910).

An attempt has been made to give as full a life history as possible of the best-known subspecies and to avoid duplication by writing briefly of the others and giving only the characters of the subspecies, its range, and any habits peculiar to it. In many cases certain habits, probably common to the species as a whole, have been recorded for only one subspecies; such habits are mentioned under the subspecies on which the observations were made. The distribution gives the range of the species as a whole, with only rough outlines of the ranges of the subspecies, which cannot be accurately defined in many cases.

The egg dates are the condensed results of a mass of records taken from the data in a large number of the best egg collections in the country, as well as from contributed field notes and from a few published sources. They indicate the dates on which eggs have been actually found in various parts of the country, showing the earliest and latest dates and the limits between which half the dates fall, the height of the season.

The plumages are described in only enough detail to enable the reader to trace the sequence of molts and plumages from birth to maturity and to recognize the birds in the different stages and at the different seasons. No attempt has been made to describe fully the adult plumages; this has been done very well in the many manuals and State bird books that are now available. The names of colors, when in quotation marks, are taken from Ridgway’s Color Standards and Color Nomenclature (1912), and the terms used to describe the shapes of eggs are taken from his Nomenclature of Colors (1886). The boldface type in the measurements of eggs indicates the four extremes of the measurements.

Many of those who contributed material for previous bulletins have continued to cooperate. Receipt of material from more than 430 contributors has been acknowledged previously. In addition to these, our thanks are due to the following new contributors: Dean Amadon, E. R. Forrest, Allen Frost, J. J. Hickey, Joseph Janiec, Melvin Johansen, M. B. Meanley, Jr., R. L. Meredith, E. E. Murphey, A. G. Nye, Jr., R. T. Orr, R. S. Palmer, Cordelia J. Stanwood, Wendell Taber, A. E. Thompson, and Mrs. L. J. Webster. If any contributor fails to find his name in this or in one of the previous lists, the author would be glad to be advised.

Egg measurements were furnished especially for this volume by Dean Amadon, A. M. Bailey, C. E. Doe, J. R. Gillin, W. C. Hanna, H. L. Harllee, R. C. Harlow, R. T. Orr, J. H. Riley, G. H. Stuart, 3d, and Miss M. W. Wythe.

Through the courtesy of the Bureau of Biological Survey, the services of Frederick C. Lincoln were again obtained to compile the distribution paragraphs. With the matchless reference files of the Biological Survey at his disposal, his many hours of careful work have produced results far more satisfactory than could have been attained by the author, who claims no credit and assumes no responsibility for this part of the work.

Dr. Winsor M. Tyler rendered valuable assistance in reading and indexing, for this group, the greater part of the leading periodicals relating to North American birds, which saved the author many hours of tedious work and for which he is very grateful. Dr. Tyler contributed the life histories of the northern downy woodpecker and yellow-bellied sapsucker, Dr. Arthur A. Allen wrote the life history of the ivory-billed woodpecker, Bayard H. Christy that of the northern pileated woodpecker, and Dr. Eugene E. Murphey that of the red-cockaded woodpecker. Thanks are due also to F. Seymour Hersey for figuring the egg measurements.

The manuscript for this volume was completed in June 1938. Contributions received since then will be acknowledged later. Only information of great importance could be added. The reader is reminded again that this is a cooperative work; if he fails to find in these volumes anything that he knows about the birds, he can blame himself for not having sent the information to— The Author.

LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN WOODPECKERS

ORDER PICIFORMES

By Arthur Cleveland Bent
Taunton, Mass.

Order PICIFORMES

Family PICIDAE: American Woodpeckers

CAMPEPHILUS PRINCIPALIS (Linnaeus)

IVORY-BILLED WOODPECKER

Plates [1], [2]

HABITS
Contributed by Arthur Augustus Allen

The large size and striking color pattern, the mystery of its habitat, and the tragedy of its possible extinction combine to make the ivory-billed woodpecker one of peculiar interest to all Americans who have any pride in the natural resources of their country.

Ever since the days of Mark Catesby (1731) this species has attracted popular attention, and even at that time, as he stated in his Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands: “The bills of these Birds are much valued by the Canada Indians, who made Coronets of ’em for their Princes and great warriors, by fixing them round a Wreath, with their points outward. The Northern Indians having none of these Birds in their cold country, purchase them of the Southern People at the price of two, and sometimes three, Buck-skins a Bill.” At that time the species was found throughout the Gulf States as far north as North Carolina and up the Mississippi Valley as far as southern Ohio and Illinois.

Today it is almost extinct, and indeed during the past 50 years long periods have elapsed when no individuals have been reported from any part of its range. It apparently has been exterminated from all but a few isolated localities in Louisiana, Florida, and South Carolina, where it still clings on in a precarious position.

The ivorybill is primarily a bird of the great moss-hung southern swamps, where mature timber with its dying branches provides a bounteous food supply of wood-boring larvae, but its habits apparently vary in different parts of its range, for the birds I observed in Florida, although nesting in a cypress swamp, did most of their feeding along its borders on recently killed young pines that were infested with beetle larvae. They even got down on the ground like flickers to feed among palmetto roots on a recent burn. In Louisiana, on the other hand, the nesting birds observed confined their activities to a mature forest of oak, sweetgum, and hackberry, and paid little attention to the cypress trees along the lagoons.

Spring.—At what time the winter groups of ivorybills break up and spring activities commence is rather difficult to state, for there seems to be considerable irregularity to the breeding season. Judged from published records of its nests, the period of greatest activity would seem to be late March and early April. According to Audubon (1842): “The ivory-billed woodpecker nestles earlier in spring than any other species of its tribe. I have observed it boring a hole for that purpose in the beginning of March.” Scott (1881) reports taking an incubating female in Florida on January 20, 1880, and (1888) of finding a nest containing one young female about one-third grown on March 17, 1887. Ridgway (1898) likewise speaks of shooting a male that left its nest hole February 15, 1898, and Hoyt (1905) states that “in Florida they begin building the latter part of January, and if undisturbed the eggs are laid by February 10th.” In 1937 James Tanner (MS.) discovered a nest in Louisiana from which the fledgling left on March 30, fully 2 months earlier than any previous records from the same locality, and in 1938 apparently the same pair of birds had young the last week in February. In contrast to these dates we find 10 records of April nesting, 5 for May, and 1 (Beyer, 1900) of a young bird just out of the nest in July. The latter records might well constitute second attempts at nesting. The Florida birds, in general, start earlier than those in Louisiana, but at best there seems to be less regularity to the commencement of the nesting period than is found with most of our North American woodpeckers. In this, the ivorybill may register its affinity with tropical birds in general, the ivorybill being the most northern representative of an otherwise tropical or semitropical genus. There is some evidence for believing that ivorybills wander over considerably larger territories in winter than those to which they confine their activities in the spring, but little definite information has thus far been recorded on any of their before and after breeding activities.

Courtship.—Nothing seems to have been written on the courtship of the ivorybill except the observations of Allen and Kellogg (1937):

Our only observations were made In Florida about 6 a. m., on April 13, 1924. We had discovered this pair of ivorybills at about the same time the preceding morning when they came out of the cypress swamp and preened their feathers and called a few times from the top of a dead pine before going off together to feed. They had made such a long flight the previous day that we were unable to find them again, but that night, still traveling together, they had returned to the same group of medium-sized cypress trees which they had apparently left in the morning and in which there was one fresh hole in addition to four or five other old ones in the near vicinity. On the morning of the 13th, they called as they left these cypress trees and flew to the top of a dead pine at the edge of the swamp, where they called and preened. Finally the female climbed up directly below the male and when she approached him closely he bent his head downward and clasped bills with her. The next instant they both flew out on to the “burn,” where we followed their feeding operations for about an hour.

Nesting.—As before stated, while there are a few records of February nesting, the most definite records are for March, April, and early May, as follows:

• April 6, ——. M. Thompson, Okefinokee swamp, Georgia. Laying.
• April 9, 1892. E. A. McIlhenny, Avery swamp, Louisiana. Three fresh eggs.
• April 10, ——. Dr. S. W. Wilson, Altamaha swamp, Georgia. Four eggs.
• April 15, 1893. A. Wayne, Florida. A young female about 2 weeks out of the nest.
• April 19, 1893. Ralph Collection, Lafayette County, Fla. Three eggs.
• May 2, 1892. E. A. McIlhenny, Avery swamp, Louisiana. Three eggs.
• May 19, 1892. E. A. McIlhenny, Avery swamp, Louisiana. Four eggs, a second laying.
• May (early) 1894. E. A. McIlhenny, Avery swamp., Louisiana. Five young, 3 days old.
• May 3, 1885. Capt. B. F. Goss, Jasper County, Tex. Three eggs.
• July 1897. George G. Beyer, Franklin Parish, La.
• March 4, 1904. Brown brothers (Hoyt), feeding young.
• March 16, 1904. R. D. Hoyt, Taylor County, Fla. Large young.
• March 4, 1905. E. D. Hoyt, Claremont County, Fla. Two eggs, incubation advanced.
• March 24, 1905. R. D. Hoyt, Claremont County, Fla. Two eggs slightly incubated (second laying of the preceding).
• April 13, 1924. A. A. Allen, Taylor Creek, Fla. Nest completed. Incubation not yet started.
• April (early) 1931. J. J. Kuhn, northern Louisiana. Incubating.
• May 13, 1934. J. J. Kuhn, northern Louisiana. Probably small young.
• April 6, 1935. A. A. Allen and P. P. Kellogg, northern Louisiana. Incubating.
• April 9, 1935. A. A. Allen and P. P. Kellogg, northern Louisiana. Building.
• April 25, 1935. A. A. Allen and P. P. Kellogg, northern Louisiana. Incubating.
• May 10, 1935. A. A. Allen and P. P. Kellogg, northern Louisiana. Small young.

Again quoting from the report of Allen and Kellogg (1937):

The site of the Ivorybill’s nest seems to vary considerably. Audubon states: “The hole is, I believe, always made in the trunk of a live tree, generally an ash or a hackberry, and is at a great height.” There are, however, records of their nesting in live cypress, partially dead oaks, a dead royal-palm stub, “an old and nearly rotten white elm stump,” etc., indicating about as great a variety as shown by the pileated woodpecker. The lowest authentic nest of which we have found a record, was that described by Beyer (1900) “about 25 feet up in a living over-cup oak,” although Scott (1881) mentions what he considered “an old nest evidently of this species,” in a palmetto stub only fifteen feet from the ground. The nest which we discovered in Florida, in 1924, was about thirty feet up in a live cypress and there were other holes in the vicinity in similar trees that had apparently been used in years past. The bark had healed over in some cases and scar tissue was apparently trying to close the wounds. Of the four nests examined in Louisiana, three were in oaks and one in a swamp maple. The maple, seven and a half feet in circumference (breast high), was partially alive, but the top where the nest was located, 43 feet from the ground, was dead and pithy. Of those in oak trees, one was in a dead pin-oak stub about ten feet in circumference and about fifty feet high, standing in more or less of a clearing. The nest was 47 feet 8 inches from the ground. The other two were not measured accurately but were certainly over forty feet from the ground. About the middle of May when it was determined that the first two trees had been deserted, they were cut down, careful measurements taken, and the contents of the holes preserved. The hole in the maple was 5 inches in vertical diameter and 4⅛ inches laterally, and was slightly irregular at the bottom, as shown in the photographs; that in the oak was more symmetrical with a similar vertical diameter of 5 inches and a transverse diameter of 4 inches. The depth of the maple nest from the top of the entrance hole was 19⅛ inches, of which 3 inches was filled with chips and “sawdust.” This nest cavity was 8⅛ inches in diameter at the egg level, and the tree itself 18½ inches in diameter at the level of the hole. The nest cavity in the oak was 20 inches from top to bottom with a diameter of 8¼ inches at the egg level. The entrance hole went in 3 inches before it turned abruptly downward; the tree at this point was 22 inches in diameter. There was a stub just above the hole in the maple about 4 inches long representing a branch that had apparently died and been broken off years before and started to heal over. The oak was perfectly smooth at the entrance hole, but on either side, slightly above, were the bases of two large branches that could not have given the opening any protection from the weather. The opening in the maple faced north, two of those in the oaks east, and one west. Audubon states: “The birds pay great regard to the particular situation of the tree and the inclination of the trunk; first, because they prefer retirement, and, again, because they are anxious to secure the aperture against the access of water during beating rains. To prevent such a calamity the hole is generally dug immediately under the juncture of a large branch with the trunk.” None of the nests examined by us showed this desire for protection from rain, and the chips at the bottom of the cavity were perfectly dry, though we had had some very heavy rains shortly before they were examined.

Audubon further states: “The average diameter of the different nests which I examined was about 7 inches within, although the entrance, which is perfectly round, is only just large enough to admit the bird.” Beyer (1900) says: “The entrance measures exactly 4½ inches in height and 3⅞ inches in width,” and McIlhenny (Bendire, 1895) gives the measurements of a typical hole as “oval and measures 4⅛ by 5¾ inches,” and Scott (1888) as “3½ inches wide and 4½ inches high.” The corresponding measurements of the nests of Pileated Woodpeckers are given by Bendire (1895) as follows: “The entrance measures from 3 to 3½ inches in diameter, and it often goes 5 inches straight into the trunk before it is worked downward.” The additional one to two inches in diameter of the nest hole should be kept in mind when searching for reasons why the Ivorybill has proven less successful than the Pileated Woodpecker in its struggle for existence. Thompson (1885) states: “The depth of the hole varies from three to seven feet, as a rule, but I found one that was nearly nine feet deep and another that was less than two.” He also claims that they are always jug-shaped at the lower end.

Of two nests discovered by Hoyt (1905) in Claremont County, Fla., one was 58 feet up in a live cypress about 20 yards from a nest discovered in 1904 by the Brown brothers; the second nest built by the same pair after the first eggs had been taken was in a cypress stub about 70 yards distant from the first and 47 feet from the ground. The opening of the first nest was 6¾ inches by 3¼ inches, with the trunk of the tree 15 inches in diameter at the nest cavity, which was 14 inches deep. The second nest hole measured 6 by 3¾ inches and was likewise 14 inches deep. “The opening in both nests was uneven and rough, and just inside the hollow was much enlarged, being 9 inches across, and unlike the nests of other woodpeckers, was smaller at the bottom than at the top. * * * One marked feature of the nest tree of which I have seen no mention made is that the outer bark of those I have examined was torn to shreds from a point some distance below the nest site to 15 or 20 feet above it. This made the nest tree noticeable for quite a distance. The last nest taken this season had little of this work done.”

Allen and Kellogg (1937) say further:

According to McIlhenny (Bendire, 1895) the female does all the work of excavation, requiring from eight to fourteen days, while the male sits around and chips the bark from neighboring trees. Audubon, however, states that “both birds work most assiduously at this excavation, one waiting outside to encourage the other.” Maurice Thompson (1896) likewise reports that both birds work at the excavation. We had no opportunity to check either statement but certainly both birds take part in incubation and feeding the young. The chips are not removed from the vicinity of the nest for each one that we have examined has had piles of chips directly below the opening though, since most of the trees were standing in water, the chips were not very conspicuous.

We camped within three hundred feet of our first Ivorybill nest in Louisiana, in 1935. A pair of 24-power binoculars set on a tripod was trained on the nest opening, and from daylight, April 10, until 11 a. m., April 14, continuous observations during the hours of daylight were made either by the writers or by James Tanner. The nest had been found the morning of April 6, when the female was incubating, but how far along incubation had proceeded we made no effort to determine for fear of disturbing the birds. Contrary to most published accounts, however, the birds were not particularly wary and soon became so accustomed to our presence that they would enter the nest-hole with one of us standing at the base of the tree and later even when one of us was descending from a blind which we built on April 9 in the top of an adjacent rock elm, twenty feet distant from the nest. On April 9, we located a second pair of Ivorybills in the vicinity of a fresh hole about fifty feet up in a dead oak, some two miles to the south of the nest in the maple. The following morning, however, the nest was occupied by a black squirrel and the birds had disappeared.

Briefly summarizing our five-day vigil at the occupied nest, we learned that the birds took turns sitting on the eggs, working in approximately two-hour shifts when not alarmed, but changing places more frequently when disturbed. Activities usually commenced about six o’clock in the morning, three-quarters of an hour after Cardinals and Carolina Wrens started singing. At this time the female relieved the male after his having spent the night on the eggs. Activities ceased about four o’clock in the afternoon when the male relieved the female on the eggs and went in the nest for the night. This was nearly three hours before dark, which came about seven o’clock.

Eggs.—According to Bendire (1895):

The eggs of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker are pure china white in color, close grained, and exceedingly glossy, as if enameled. They vary in shape from an elongate ovate to a cylindrical ovate, and are more pointed than the eggs of most of our Woodpeckers. They appear to me to be readily distinguished from those of the Pileated Woodpecker, some of which are fully as large. From three to five eggs are laid to a set, and only one brood is raised in a season. * * *

The average measurement of thirteen eggs is 34.87 by 25.22 millimetres or about 1.37 by 0.99 inches. The largest egg measured 36.83 by 26.92 millimetres, or about 1.45 by 1.06 inches; the smallest, 34.54 by 23.62 millimetres, or about 1.36 by 0.93 inches.

The eggs described by Hoyt (1905) measured 1.46 by 1.09 and 1.43 by 1.07 inches in the first set and 1.43 by 1.10 and 1.43 by 1.08 inches in the second set.

From my own experience and the observation of others, it seems to me that the number of eggs laid by the ivorybill would not normally exceed three, and one or two of these are often infertile. Frequently, if the bird is successful in rearing any offspring at all, a single youngster is the result rather than two or three. Allen and Kellogg (1937) describe three nests in which no young were successfully reared, although at least some of the eggs apparently hatched, while Scott (1888), Beyer (1900), and Tanner (1937 and 1938 MS.) each report single young, and in the type set of three eggs (Ralph collection, Lafayette County, Fla.) two were infertile, and both of Hoyt’s sets contained two eggs each. On the other hand, J. J. Kuhn reports seeing one pair of ivorybills with four young in 1931 and again in 1936 in the same forest where Allen and Kellogg made their studies. In 1932, 1933, and 1934 he observed a pair of ivorybills with two young.

Plumages.—So far as I have been able to find, no one has ever published a description of the natal or juvenal plumages of the ivory-billed woodpecker. The probability is that natal down is absent, although. Scott (1888), who found a nest containing one young in Florida March 17, 1887, says: “The young bird in the nest was a female, and though one-third grown had not yet opened its eyes. The feathers of the first plumage were apparent, beginning to cover the down, and were the same in coloration as those of the adult female bird.”

During April 1937, James Tanner, recipient of the Audubon fellowship at Cornell University for the study of the ivory-billed woodpecker (MS.), was able to follow a young ivorybill for over 3 months after it left the nest, and though he never had the bird in his hands, his description is much more complete than Scott’s and the most accurate one available: “March 10, 1937: The young ivory-billed woodpecker just out of the nest resembled an adult female in general pattern but with the following differences: The black crest was short and blunt; the tail was short and square; the outer primaries were all tipped with white, instead of being wholly black as in the adult; the bill was shorter than that of an adult and was chalky white instead of ivory; the eye was a dark brown or sepia. One month later the crest was long but still blunt and black, the tail was almost as long and pointed as an adult’s, and the eye and bill were beginning to turn color.

“The bird developed gradually from then, until at three and a half months out of the nest (July 14, 1937) its size, proportions, bill, and eye color were the same as those of an adult. By then, scarlet feathers had appeared in the back of the crest. The white wing tips to the outer primaries were almost worn away.”

Since Tanner’s bird began to show red in the crest when it was three and a half months old, it is probable that the postjuvenal molt is completed by early fall and that thereafter young and adults are similar.

The chief difference between adult male and female ivorybills lies in the crest, which in the male is a brilliant scarlet, not including the uppermost feathers, which are black, like the top of the head, while the somewhat recurved crest of the female is entirely black. Females average somewhat larger than males in most of their measurements, except those of bill and feet, as the following figures (length in millimeters) given by Ridgway (1914) for 15 males and 11 females indicate:

Adult males: Skins, 420-493 (454); wing, 240-263 (255.8); tail, 147-160.5 (154.4); culmen, 63-72.5 (68.2); tarsus, 42.5-46 (44.2); outer anterior toe, 30-34 (32.1).

Adult females: Skins, 452-488 (471); wing, 240-262 (256.4); tail, 151-166 (159.5); culmen, 61-67.5 (64.3); tarsus, 40.5-44 (42.6); outer anterior toe, 30-33.5 (31.7).

In both sexes the general color is a glossy blue-black, with the tail and primaries duller or with the gloss less distinct. A narrow stripe on each side of the neck, starting below the eye and continuing down to the folded secondaries, is conspicuously white, as are also the secondaries, all but five or six of the outermost primaries, and the under wing coverts. The white nasal plumes and anterior edges of the lores more or less match the ivory-white bill and help to emphasize its size. The iris is pale, clear lemon-yellow in both sexes, and the tarsi and toes are light gray.

Food.—Audubon (1842) mentions grapes, persimmons, and hackberries as food of the ivorybills in addition to beetles, larvae, and large grubs. McIlhenny, in his communication to Bendire (1895), mentions their feeding on acorns, but Maurice Thompson (1885) asserts that “it is only woodpeckers which eat insects and larvae (dug out of rotten wood) exclusively.” Allen and Kellogg (1937) report:

We were never able to follow a bird continuously through the forest of either Louisiana or Florida for more than an hour before it would make a long flight and we would be unable to find it again. Ordinarily upon leaving the nest-tree or its immediate environs the bird would fly at least a hundred yards before stopping. Then it would feed for from a few minutes to as long as half an hour on a dead tree or dead branch before making a short flight to another tree. It might make a dozen such short flights and then, without any warning and for no apparent reason, it would start off on a long flight through the forest that would take it entirely out of sight.

Audubon states that “it seldom comes near the ground”; but the birds we have watched behave no differently from pileated woodpeckers in this respect, sometimes working high up in the trees but at other times within five or ten feet of the ground. The female of the Florida pair which we watched for over an hour on a “burn” sometimes got down on the ground around the seared, prostrate trunks of the saw palmettos, hopping like a Flicker, while her mate stayed on the trunks of the pines five to ten feet up. We never saw the Louisiana birds on the ground but there was plenty of evidence, both in Florida and Louisiana, that a bird will continue scaling the bark from recently killed trees for the beetle larvae beneath, clear to the base of the tree, until the tree stands absolutely naked with the bark piled around its base.

Frequently they return again and again to the same tree until they have entirely stripped it. At one time we thought this was their chief method of feeding, but we have since watched them digging for borers exactly like hairy or pileated woodpeckers. At one time we watched the female working at a deep gash in the tall stub of a dead gum, which was apparently a favorite feeding place. She clung to the spot for about five minutes, occasionally picking hard, but never chipping off any large flakes that would account for the depth of the hole which was exactly like that made by pileated woodpeckers,—about four inches deep and eighteen inches long. Finally she flew and disappeared in the direction of the nest which was about two hundred yards away. In a few minutes the male ivorybill came to the same spot where the female had been working and he, too, picked at the hole and stayed there for several minutes. At the time we decided that either the ivorybills or perhaps the pileateds had made the gash in the tree for carpenter ants and that the ivorybills were returning each time for more ants. Since the stub was rather rotten and full of woodpecker drillings, we decided to cut it down the next day and make certain of what the ivorybills were securing. Upon examining the hole made by the birds there was, however, no evidence of carpenter ants, and the deep gash followed the tunnels of large, wood-boring beetle larvae (Cerambycidae) of which there were a great many in the tree; the only other available woodpecker food was termites of which there were comparatively few.

Certainly the ivorybills did not do enough digging while we were watching them to uncover any additional borers, so they may have been picking up such termites as appeared in the gash. The birds, while we watched them in Louisiana, divided their time between dead branches of live trees and completely dead trees, but more time was spent knocking off the bark for whatever could be found immediately beneath it than was spent digging deeply for borers. The forest was made up primarily of oak, gum and hackberry, and the woodpeckers showed no preference for species so far as we could determine. In Florida, while the nest was located in a cypress swamp in a live cypress tree, the birds apparently did most of their feeding in the dead pines at the edge of the swamp, scaling off the bark of those small and medium-sized pines that had been killed by fire, or actually getting down on the ground like Flickers, as already described.

The ivorybills are, therefore, apparently somewhat adaptable in their food and feeding habits, but forests of mature trees with their dying branches seem to give them the best habitat for securing their food. The fruits of these trees may likewise add considerably to their attractiveness. The only definite stomach analyses published are of two birds examined by the United States Biological Survey, and reported upon by Beal (1911): “One stomach contained 32 and the other 20 of the wood-boring cerambycid larvae, which live by boring into trees. These constituted 37.5 per cent of the whole food. The remainder of the animal food consisted of engraver beetles (Scolytidae) found in one stomach. Of these, three species were identified—Tomicus avulsus, T. calligraphus, and T. grandicollis. The total animal food amounted to 38.5 per cent. The vegetable food consisted of fruit of Magnolia foetida in one stomach, and of pecan nuts in the other. The average for the two was 61.5 percent.”

The ivory-billed woodpecker is represented in the Biological Survey’s collection by the stomachs of three birds. Two of these were males collected on November 26, 1904, at Tarkington, Tex., by Vernon Bailey, and the third was shot at Bowling Green, West Carroll Parish, La., on August 19, 1903, by E. L. Moseley.

The first two stomachs were well filled, and though only the content of the third was received it was apparently well filled also. This last stomach alone contained a trace of gravel. Forty-six percent of the food was animal in origin, long-horned beetles (Cerambycidae, including Parandra polita and Stenodontus dasystomus) comprising 45.33 percent, while the remaining 0.67 percent consisted of 3 different species of engraver beetles (Tomicus spp.). Southern magnolia seeds (Magnolia grandiflora) formed 14 percent of the vegetable food, hickory (Hicoria sp.) and pecan (Hicoria pecan) nuts formed 27 percent, and poison ivy (Rhus radicans) equaled 12.67 percent. Fragments of an unidentified gall formed 1 percent of the content.

Behavior.—The uniform direct flight of the ivorybill resembles that of the red-headed woodpecker more than it does the swooping undulating flight of the pileated, and this general resemblance is emphasized by the large amount of white in the wings. When viewed from below, the long pointed tail is quite conspicuous and the wings seem very narrow because the black portion is so much more conspicuous than the white, which apparently cuts off the whole rear of the wing. This is perhaps not so conspicuous when viewed from the side, but even so it is remarkable how ducklike the bird can appear as it flies swiftly and directly up a lagoon, so much so in fact that certain Louisiana hunters have told me that they have even shot at them under such circumstances, mistaking them for ducks. In this connection Audubon’s (1842) description of the flight of the ivorybill is quite misleading: “The flight of this bird is graceful in the extreme, although seldom prolonged to more than a few hundred yards at a time, unless when it has to cross a large river, which it does in deep undulations, opening its wings at first to their full extent and nearly closing them to renew the propelling impulse. The transit from one tree to another, even should the distance be as much as a hundred yards, is performed by a single sweep, and the bird appears as if merely swinging itself from the top of the one tree to that of the other, forming an elegantly curved line.”

Voice.—Concerning the voice of the ivorybill there seems to be considerable agreement in that the ordinary note sounds like a single blast from a tin trumpet or a clarinet. In the words of Audubon, “Its notes are clear, loud, and yet rather plaintive. They are heard at a considerable distance, perhaps half a mile, and resemble the false, high note of a clarinet.” According to Hoyt (1905): “It is a single note and resembles the word Schwenk, at times keyed very high, again soft and plaintive, it lacks carrying capacity and can rarely be heard over 100 yards on a still morning, while the harsh notes of the pileated woodpecker can be heard a full mile.” Allen and Kellogg (1937) state that anyone can produce the sound very accurately by using only the mouthpiece of the clarinet. They question whether the loudest calls can be heard half a mile:

It is doubtful, however, if the loudest calls can be heard, under normal conditions, for a quarter of a mile, and some of the weaker ones are scarcely audible at 300 yards. However, when we tested the carrying power of one of our recordings of the common alarm note, kent, amplified until it sounded to our ears normal at about one hundred feet, the call was distinctly recognizable at a distance of 2,500 feet directly in front of the amplifier with no trees or buildings intervening. At a 45-degree angle the sound was not recognizable at half this distance. The birds are so often quiet for such long periods that we can scarcely agree with Audubon’s statement that “the bird spends few minutes of the day without uttering them.” They seem much more likely to call when they are alarmed, as when they discover an intruder in their haunts. Both birds give the call, but that of the female is somewhat weaker. In addition to this kent note, as it is called by the natives of Louisiana, and because of which they call the birds “Kents,” they have a variety of low conversational notes when they exchange places at the nest, which are suggestive of similar notes of the Flicker; but they never, so far as we know, give a call at all similar to the pup-pup-pup! of the pileated, nor have we ever heard them sound a real tatoo like other woodpeckers, such as described by Thompson (1885), and which McIlhenny (Bendire, 1895) compares to the “roll of a snare drum.” The birds in Florida and all those in Louisiana telegraphed to each other by single or double resounding whacks on the trunk or dead branches. Mr. Kuhn who has had years of experience with them, likewise has never heard any notes or tatoos that were comparable with those of the Pileated. Our observations agree with Audubon’s, rather than with those of some others, in that “it never utters any sound while on the wing.”

Tanner (MS.) reports, however, that in his studies during 1937 he occasionally heard a rapid succession of “kents” given on the wing as one bird flew in to join another.

The calls of the two large species of woodpeckers are so distinct that they should not be confused with each other or with those of any other birds. The fact, however, that ivorybills are continually being reported, even from the Northern States, indicates how unobservant many people are and how necessary it is to stress even such conspicuous differences as those mentioned above.

Winter.—Ivory-billed woodpeckers are apparently not only nonmigratory but also sedentary and perhaps spend their entire lives within a few miles of the spot where they were hatched. At least, once a pair has established a territory it seems to cling to that area winter and summer, and Tanner (MS.) reports one pair using the same roosting hole in December that they used the preceding April. These territories are doubtless several miles in diameter, but the tendency was for the birds to build up small communities in certain areas until in former years, when their distribution was normal, they were reported as fairly common by observers who happened upon one of these communities. On the other hand, there were perhaps always large areas of similar timber uninhabited by them, so that with equal truth by equally competent observers they were called extremely rare. How much farther they range during the winter than during the nesting season has not yet been worked out, but doubtless the area covered at such times is considerably larger, and this accounts for sporadic records of birds in the nonbreeding seasons in areas where no nests have been located and where no one has been able to find the birds subsequently.

The family groups apparently keep together until the following nesting season, and Mr. Kuhn has reported seeing groups of from three to five birds even as late as early March. Hoyt (1905) states that “after the young leave the nest in April they and the parents remain together until the mating season in December. During the summer they are always found in bands of three to five, and I have never seen more than the latter number.”

Conservation.—Arthur T. Wayne (1910) records having “encountered more than two hundred of these rare birds [in Florida] during the years 1892, 1893, and 1894.” Today it is doubtful if there are a fourth of that number left alive in its entire range.

A number of theories have been advanced for the increasing scarcity of the ivorybill, that most often mentioned being the destruction of its natural habitat, the virgin cypress and bottomland forests of the South. Commercialization, avarice of collectors, shooting for food by natives, predation by natural enemies that can enter its hole (but not the pileated) are likewise suggested, while Allen and Kellogg (1937) suggest that with increasing scarcity because of their sedentary habits, inbreeding and lack of sex rhythm resulting in weak young and infertile eggs have become increasingly important. At this writing the National Association of Audubon Societies has established a Fellowship at Cornell University for the study of the ivorybill, and it is hoped that the incumbent, James Tanner, may ascertain such facts regarding the bird and its habits that constructive measures for its preservation can be undertaken.

DISTRIBUTION

Range.—The Southeastern United States; nonmigratory.

The range of the ivory-billed woodpecker extends north to northeastern Texas (Gainesville); southeastern Oklahoma (Caddo); northeastern Arkansas (Newport and Osceola); southeastern Missouri (Little River); southeastern Illinois (Mount Carmel); southern Indiana (Monroe County and Franklin County); and southeastern North Carolina (Wilmington). East along the coast from North Carolina (Wilmington) to southeastern Florida (Cape Florida). From this point the southern limits of the range extend westward along the Gulf coast to Texas (Guadalupe and New Braunfels). West to eastern Texas (New Braunfels, San Marcos, Brazos River, and Gainesville).

The range of the species has been so restricted in modern times that periodically it is feared the bird is on the verge of extinction. It is now known to exist only in a very few remote areas, chiefly in Louisiana.

• Egg dates.—Florida: 4 records, March 4 to April 19.
• Louisiana: 5 records, March 6 to May 19.
• Georgia: 2 records, April 6 and 10.
• Texas: 2 records, April 11 and May 3.

DRYOBATES VILLOSUS VILLOSUS (Linnaeus)

EASTERN HAIRY WOODPECKER

Plate [3]

HABITS

The hairy woodpecker, with its various subspecies, ranges throughout practically all the timbered regions in North America, but the type race, the subject of this sketch, is confined, during the breeding season at least, to the Transition and Upper Austral Zones of Northeastern United States and extreme southern Canada.

In the region where I am most familiar with it, southern New England, it is not an abundant bird at any season, quite rare in summer and oftener seen in winter. It is essentially a retiring, forest-loving bird, being found with us in summer in the dry deciduous woods, or occasionally in rural districts in old orchards near the borders of wooded areas. In winter, it is given more to wandering into villages and towns, or may be seen even in the shade trees in larger cities.

I remember having found it only twice in swampy woods, but Dr. George M. Sutton (1928b), in his paper on the birds of Pymatuning Swamp, Crawford County, Pa., says: “The hairy woodpecker occurs only rarely in the higher deciduous woods outside the borders of Pymatuning during the nesting season, but it is abundant everywhere in the wooded Swamp, and in the restricted area, closely examined in 1922, was considered one of the most numerous species.”

Courtship.—Francis H. Allen has sent me the following notes on this subject: “The courtship dance consists of a weaving motion of the head, as with the flicker, accompanied by a high-pitched ch’weech, ch’weech, ch’weech, repeated over and over vociferously. The note is much like that of the flicker, but higher-pitched and more rapidly delivered. Three and sometimes four birds may be seen so engaged together, but I have no observation as to the sexes. In quiet intervals in courtship, the head is held with bill parallel with the axis of the body, not at right angles as in feeding.”

Edward H. Forbush (1927) writes:

On bright March days this bird begins to practise what is either a love song, a challenge, a call to its mate, or all combined. This is no vocal music but instead a loud drumming on some resonant dead tree, branch, or pole. This long roll or tattoo is louder than that of the downy woodpecker, not quite so long, and with a slightly greater interval between each succeeding stroke. It takes a practiced ear, however, to distinguish between the drumming of these two species. In courtship the male chases the female from tree to tree with coaxing calls, and there is much dodging about among the branches and bowing to each other before the union is consummated.

Rex Brasher (1926) writes:

Seated under a cluster of small maples, one day in early May, I watched the interesting courting antics of the pair. The jaunty male’s favorite position was one in which he appeared to be almost standing on his tail. With bill upright, wings thrown forward, and tail wide-spread he repeated over and over what was undoubtedly intended for a love-song, a series of notes divided between chuckles and whistles. But the strangest, most mystifying performance was a series of backward drops on the under side of a limb inclined about forty-five degrees. * * * Why didn’t the little acrobat fall when he released his claws? Studying his movements carefully through the binoculars, I came to the conclusion that at the instant of releasing his grip he jerked his body toward the limb with sufficient impetus to catch the bark six inches or so below.

Lewis O. Shelley says in his notes: “I have watched the act of copulation of the hairy woodpecker and noted its dissimilarity to the downy. For the hairy invariably instills a follow-up procedure to the display, the male coming to her call and, soon thereafter, hopping up the branch toward her with a short jerking movement, in which he calls wick-up, wick-up, wick-up, wings agitating, this immediately followed by copulation.”

Nesting.—The hairy woodpecker is rather rare, as a breeding bird, in my home territory in southeastern Massachusetts, but I have the records of 12 local nests. It shows a decided preference for deciduous woodlands, six of the nests being in dry, upland woods and two in maple swamps; of the other four nests, three were in apple orchards, close to extensive woodlots, and the fourth was in a small, living, red maple in a swampy meadow, some distance from any woods. The birds showed no decided preference for any one species of tree; three nests each were found in maples and apple trees, two each in chestnuts and poplars, and one each in a dead oak and a dead beech. Only four nests were in dead trees or dead branches; the others were all in living hardwoods. The heights from the ground varied from 5 feet in a dead poplar stub to 30 feet, or more, in tall chestnuts or maples. The entrance to the nesting cavity often appears nearly, or quite, circular, but on careful measurement will usually be shown to be more or less elliptical, higher than broad; a typical entrance hole that I measured was 1⅞ high by 1½ inches wide. The depth of the cavity was found to vary from 10 to 12 inches, but Mr. Shelley (1933) measured one that was 15 inches deep, and even deeper holes have been reported. Owen Durfee’s notes give some very careful measurements of two of our local nests, one of which is worth quoting as showing an unusually elliptical entrance: “The entrance to the nest was on the northeast side of the trunk of a live chestnut and 22½ feet from the ground. The tree leaned toward the east about 2 feet. At the butt it was 9 inches in diameter and at the opening about 6½ inches. The opening had the usual elongated appearance, 2⅝ high by 1⅞ inches wide. The top of the hole went straight in across the cavity for 4½ inches, the bottom edge of the opening slanting up ¾ of an inch while going in 1½ inches. Then the cavity went nearly straight down below the hole for 12 inches, enlarging only a trifle, so that the base was about 4½ inches in diameter. The shell of the tree was only about ⅞ inch thick on one side but on the other was 2 inches thick.”

Dr. Sutton (1928b) says of the nests in Pymatuning Swamp, Pa.: “The cavities were drilled near the tops of dead trees which nearly always stood in water. It was impossible to climb many of them because their bases were weak; but the clamoring of the young birds could be heard some distance away. On May 30, 1922, I located six nests within a half hour by watching the parent birds and listening for the young. * * * The twenty-six nests averaged roughly over thirty feet from the ground.”

T. E. McMullen mentions in his notes a Pennsylvania nest that was 50 feet from the ground in a large maple in some woods. J. Claire Wood (1905) reports some very high nests in Michigan; one was in the “trunk of very large barkless dead elm about 50 feet above ground”; another was in the trunk of a “dead beech 55 feet up and just under a large limb.”

The female probably selects the nesting site, but both sexes work alternately at the labor of excavating the cavity. This work requires one to three weeks, depending on how hard the wood is; a cavity in the soft wood of a poplar, which is a favorite with this species in some localities, might be excavated in a very short time, but I have known a pair to take over three weeks to excavate a nest in a hard maple; the trunk of a living tree may have a soft center, and some of the birds seem to be clever enough to select such a tree. A new nest may often be recognized by the presence of fresh chips on the ground around the tree, as the birds are not very particular about removing them.

The male sometimes digs out another shallower hole near the nesting tree, which he uses as a sleeping place. Usually a fresh hole is made each season, but I have seen occupied holes that were very much weathered, as if they had been occupied for more than one season; in such cases, the cavity may be deepened somewhat and the bottom covered with fresh chips. I once found a pair of these woodpeckers excavating their domicile, which they later abandoned, as I found on a later visit that the hole was partly full of water and sap. They are not always successful in their first attempt, for this and other reasons, and may have to start two or three holes before they find just the conditions they want. The eggs are laid on a soft bed of fresh chips at the bottom of the cavity and are usually half buried in it; no nesting material is carried in.

Eggs.—The hairy woodpecker lays three to six eggs, but four seems to be the commonest number. The eggs vary in shape from oval to elliptical-oval, usually more nearly oval. The shell is smooth and often quite glossy. The color is pure white, but in fresh eggs the yolk shows through the translucent shell, giving the egg a beautiful orange-pink color. The measurements of 47 eggs average 23.81 by 18.04 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 29.50 by 18.80, 28.70 by 18.90, and 20.57 by 16.26 millimeters.

Young.—Only one brood is raised in a season, but, if the nest is robbed, the female will lay a second set after an interval of 12 or 14 days, and sometimes even a third set; often subsequent layings may be in the same nest hole.

Bendire (1895) says:

The duties of incubation are divided between the sexes and last about two weeks. The young when first hatched are repulsive-looking creatures, blind and naked, with enormously large heads, and ugly protuberances at the base of the bill, resembling a reptile more than a bird. They are totally helpless for some days, and can not stand; but they soon learn to climb. They are fed by the parents by regurgitation of their food, which is the usual way in which the young of most Woodpeckers are fed when first hatched. * * * The young remain in the nest about three weeks. When disturbed they utter a low, purring noise, which reminds me somewhat of that made by bees when swarming, and when a little older they utter a soft “puirr, puirr.” Even after leaving the nest they are assiduously cared for by both parents for several weeks, until able to provide for themselves.

Plumages.—The young hairy, like all other young woodpeckers, is hatched naked, and the juvenal plumage is assumed while in the nest, so that when the young birds emerge they are fully fledged. In the juvenal plumage the sexes are sometimes much alike, though oftener there is a decided difference. In both sexes the bill is decidedly smaller, weaker, and more pointed than in the adult; the color pattern is almost exactly like that of the adult, but the plumage is softer and fluffier; the white markings are more or less tinged with yellowish, the two inner primaries are dwarfed, and the innermost white tail feather is usually tipped with black. The colored markings in the crowns of both sexes are very variable in color and in extent. L. L. Snyder (1923) has made a careful study of the crown markings of young hairy and downy woodpeckers of both sexes. He found that 90 percent of the young male hairies had more or less red, pinkish, or yellowish markings in the crowns, and only about 14 percent of the young females were so marked. But only 10 percent of the young males and about 43 percent of the young females had white markings only on a black crown; and about 43 percent of the young females had the entire crown black. There is great individual variation in the amount and in the distribution of these colors; the white spots are often mixed with the other colors; the reddish and yellowish colors may invade nearly the whole crown, exist in one or two large patches, or appear on only a few scattered feathers.

The juvenal plumage is worn but a short time; the molt into the first winter plumage is accomplished between July and October. This first winter plumage is much like that of the adult in both sexes, but the white spots are not quite so pure white, and the red nuchal patch of the male is duller and often interrupted. Adults have a complete postnuptial molt in August and September and perhaps a partial prenuptial molt in spring.

Food.—Various studies of the food habits of the hairy woodpeckers show that these birds are among our most useful birds and especially valuable as protectors of our forest and shade trees and orchards. More than 75 percent of their food consists of injurious insects, while the amount of useful insects and cultivated fruits that they destroy is insignificant. Prof. F. E. L. Beal (1911) has published the most exhaustive report on this subject, based on the study of 382 stomachs collected during every month in the year and from many parts of the range of the species, including practically all of the races. He says: “In the first analysis the food divides into 77.67 percent of animal matter and 22.33 of vegetable. The animal food consists of insects, with a few spiders and millepeds; the vegetable part is made up of fruit, seeds, and a number of miscellaneous substances.” Of the animal food, he says: “The largest item in the annual diet of the hairy woodpecker consists of the larvae of cerambycid and buprestid beetles, with a few lucanids and perhaps some other wood borers. These insects constitute over 31 percent of the food and are eaten in every month of the year. * * * One stomach contained 100 of these larvae and 83 and 50, respectively, were taken from two others. Of the 382 stomachs, 204, or 53 percent, contained these grubs, and 27 of them held no other food. Other beetles amount to a little more than 9 percent.”

Ants rank second in importance, amounting to a little more than 17 percent, and are taken every month in the year; other Hymenoptera are eaten in very small quantities and irregularly. Caterpillars are the next most important item, many of them wood-boring species, amounting to a little less than 10 percent. “Prof. F. M. Webster states that he has seen a hairy woodpecker successfully peck a hole through the parchment-like covering of the cocoon of a Cecropia moth and devour the contents. On examining more than 20 cocoons in a grove of box elders, he found only 2 uninjured,” according to Professor Beal (1911), who adds that bugs (Hemiptera) and plant lice (aphids) form only a small part of the food, and says: “Orthoptera, that is, grasshoppers, crickets, and cockroaches, are rarely eaten by the hairy. A few eggs, probably those of tree crickets, and the egg cases (oötheca) of cockroaches, constitute the bulk of this food. These with a few miscellaneous insects amount to a little more than 2 percent for the year. Spiders with their cocoons of eggs, including one jointed spider (Solpugidae), and a few millepeds, were eaten to the extent of about 3.5 percent, which completes the quota of animal food.”

He says further:

The vegetable food of the hairy woodpecker may be considered under four heads: Fruit, grain, seeds, and miscellaneous vegetable substances. Fruit amounts to 5.22 percent of the food, and was contained in 54 stomachs, of which 13 held what was diagnosed as domestic varieties, and 41 contained wild species. Rubus seeds (blackberries or raspberries) were identified in 4 stomachs, and were counted as domestic fruit, but it is perhaps more probable that they were wild. * * * Of wild fruit 18 species were identified. It constitutes the great bulk of the fruit eaten, and is nearly all of varieties not useful to man.

Corn was the only grain discovered in the food. It was found in 10 stomachs, and amounted to 1.37 percent. * * * The seed of poison ivy and poison sumac (Rhus radicans and R. vernix) were found in 17 stomachs, and as they usually pass through the alimentary canal uninjured, the birds do some harm by scattering the seeds of these noxious plants. * * * Cambium, or the inner bark of trees, was identified in 23 stomachs. Evidently the hairy does but little damage by denuding trees of their bark. Mast, made up of acorns, hazelnuts, and beechnuts, was found in 50 stomachs. It was mostly taken in the fall and winter months, and appears to be quite a favorite food during the cooler part of the year.

Illustrating the quantities of insects eaten by individual birds, F. H. King (1883), Wisconsin, writes: “Of twenty-one specimens examined, eleven had eaten fifty-two wood-boring larvae; five, thirteen geometrid caterpillars; ten, one hundred and five ants; six, ten beetles; two, two cockroaches; two, nine oötheca of cockroaches; two, two moths; one, a small snail; one, green corn; one, a wild cherry; and one, red elder berries. * * * One of the above birds had in its stomach eleven wood-boring larvae (Lamides?) and twelve geometers; another, thirteen larvae of long-horn beetles and four cockroach oötheca; another, nine wood-boring larvae; and two others together had three wood-boring larvae, and nine larvae not coleopterous.”

V. A. Alderson (1890) published the following interesting note: “Last summer, potato bugs covered every patch of potatoes in Marathon County, (being my home county,) Wis. One of my friends here, found his patch an exception, and therefore took pains to find the reason, and observed a hairy woodpecker, making frequent visits to the potato field and going from there to a large pine stub a little distance away.

“After observing this for about six weeks, he made a visit to the pine stub and found, on inspection, a large hole in its side about fifteen feet up. He took his axe and cut down the stub, split it open, and found inside, over two bushels of bugs. All had their heads off and bodies intact.”

The woodpecker’s method of locating tree-boring larvae and its specialized apparatus for extracting them are so well described by Dr. Thomas S. Roberts (1932) that I cannot do better than to quote him, as follows:

The hairy woodpecker possesses in its tongue one of the most remarkably developed and perfectly adapted instruments for extracting the tree larvae from their tunnels. The tip is a rigid, barbed spear and can be thrust out to an astonishing distance by reason of greatly elongated, posterior horns which pass up over the back and top of the head and run together down in front of the right eye, around which they are coiled for almost the entire circumference of the socket! So that, the drilling into the tunnel accomplished, the tongue darts out, the inner ends uncoil, the spear transfixes the grub, and with little ado the larva is dragged from its retreat into the bill of the bird, pounded perhaps for a moment or two, swallowed forthwith or carried to the young, and this most perfectly contrived and highly efficient engine is once more ready for action. There has been considerable discussion as to how the woodpeckers locate the larvae, active or dormant, which are hidden deeply in the wood and for which they drill so unerringly. All the special senses of birds are very highly developed, and it seems probable that in this case hearing, touch, and smell all may play a part. The active grub, as it crunches the wood, makes a sound that would surely be audible to a bird with its keen sense of hearing. The tunnel produces a cavity which would give both a different sound and feeling on tapping over it. Such things as grubs have a strong odor, and it is probable that this plays a part also.

Forbush (1927) says: “Maurice Thompson asserts that the hairy woodpecker strikes its bill into the wood and then holds the point of one mandible for a moment in the dent thus made. He believes that the vibrations produced by the insect in the wood are then conveyed through the beak and skull of the bird to its brain.”

In winter this woodpecker comes readily to suet or meat bones hung up on our trees or feeding stations to attract birds. It is also said to feed on the carcasses of animals left in the woods by trappers or hunters and to pick the fat from fresh skins that the trapper has hung up to dry. Although often called a sapsucker, there is practically no evidence that it ever does any injury to trees in this way; any sap or cambium eaten is probably taken incidentally in its search for insects.

Behavior.—The hairy woodpecker is a much shier, more retiring bird than the confiding little downy; it is also more active and noisier; it usually will not allow such close approach but will dodge around the trunk of a tree or fly away, if an intruder comes too near, bounding through the air in a series of graceful dips and rebounds. Rex Brasher (1926) followed one for four hours that alighted “on two hundred and eighteen different trees, an average of nearly one a minute! The longest time he remained on one tree was seven minutes. This was a dead chestnut with most of the bark still adhering. By far the larger proportion of the trees were old chestnuts, and under their loosely attached covering he found most successful hunting. Rough-bark species were preferred—chestnuts, oaks, old maples and hickories, about in the order named. Smooth-barked ones received little notice.”

Dr. Morris Gibbs (1902) says: “Have my readers carefully watched a Woodpecker leave its perch on the trunk or limb? The bird throws itself backward from its vertical position by a leg spring, together with a tail movement, turns in the air in the fraction of a second and is sweeping away to the next perch. Arriving at the next resting place it makes a single counteracting stroke of the wings against the air, and perches lightly on the bark of limb or trunk.”

Like all woodpeckers, the hairy is an expert climber, perfectly at home on the trunk of a tree, or even on the under side of a branch, where its strong claws enable it to cling in almost any position or to move about with astonishing rapidity and skill in any direction. Its stiff tail feathers act as a prop and help to support it while hammering away at the bark with its powerful beak. Forbush (1927) says that it “is the embodiment of sturdy energy and persistent industry. Active, cheerful, ever busy, its life of arduous toil brings but one reward, a liberal sustenance. It sometimes spends nearly an hour of hard labor in digging out a single borer, but commonly reaches the object of its quest in much less time.”

Voice.—The ordinary call of the hairy woodpecker is louder and shriller than that of the downy. Francis H. Allen says, in his notes, that it bears “about the same relation to it as the solitary sandpiper’s peet-weet does to that of the spotted sandpiper. I hear it most frequently from the female. In fact, a female of the species that visits my place at all times of the year often utters this note continually, as if calling for a mate or claiming territory, but she never nests very near.”

Bendire (1895) describes its ordinary note as “a shrill, rattling note, triii, triii;” and again as several loud notes uttered on the wing, like huip, huip. Forbush (1927) calls the ordinary note “a high, sharp, rather metallic chink or click.” Aretas A. Saunders (1929) says: “The call is a loud ‘keep,’ like that of the downy woodpecker, but louder. Another call is a loud rattle, suggesting that of the Kingfisher, but slurring down the scale. Another call, ‘kuweek kuweek kuweek kuweek,’ is used during the mating season, and suggests the Flicker’s ‘oweeka.’”

Field marks.—The hairy woodpecker is a large edition of the downy woodpecker, a black and white woodpecker, white below and black above, spotted with white on the wings, and with a broad white stripe down the center of the back. Only the male has the red patch on the back of the neck. It can be distinguished from the downy by its much larger size, its more restless behavior, its relatively longer and larger bill, and by the lateral tail feathers, which are pure white in the hairy and somewhat barred with black in the downy.

Enemies.—B. T. Gault, in his notes from Marshall County, Ill., states: “The hairy woodpecker is now a very rare breeder here owing to the fact that the English sparrow appropriates almost every nest hole as soon as it is excavated. I once saw one of these sparrows enter the hole of one of these birds, take a newly hatched bird out in its bill, flutter for an instant over the water (the nest was in a dead willow snag standing in the overflowed Illinois River bottoms), and drop the young bird into the water to drown. It then returned into the nest and soon appeared with another newly hatched woodpecker in its bill. As it fluttered over the water for an instant, my gun cracked and the sparrow died.”

Verdi Burtch (1923) writes: “April 16, 1922, when in a thin wood I heard a female hairy woodpecker making a great fuss as they do when one invades the vicinity of their nest. As I neared the place I saw the nest hole about twenty feet up in an elm stub. About ten feet away, sitting erect on a limb of another tree, was a red squirrel eating something that it held in its fore-paws. My 8-power binoculars showed this to be a naked baby bird, presumably a hairy woodpecker and not more than two or three days old.”

Mr. Shelley (1933) tells of a pair of hairy woodpeckers that were twice, in the same season, driven out of their nest by starlings and their eggs destroyed.

Fall.—The Hairy woodpecker has often been said to be a permanent resident on its breeding grounds, but this is not strictly true. The species may be present all through the year over much of its range, but there is evidence to indicate a general southward movement in fall; the individuals seen in winter are probably not the same as those seen in summer. Moreover, there is a noticeable increase in numbers in certain localities in winter.

Lewis O. Shelley has sent me some full notes on the migration of hairy woodpeckers, as he has observed it near East Westmoreland, N. H., from which I quote as follows: “For four years I have watched, in the autumn months, passing hairies that go through, some dropping down into the valley to feed as they go along, but others passing over the valley from hill to hill (2 miles) without stopping. In passing through, they traverse in general the same route each year. They come from an eastern and continue on in a western direction at an oblique angle to the Connecticut River, which they must cross in the vicinity of Brattleboro, Vt.

“These migrants usually appear here late in August or early in September and continue to arrive at irregular intervals until late in October. It is common for one, or two, rarely more, to pass together; but such occurrences have happened, as on October 24, 1934, when, beginning soon after noon and lasting until four o’clock, the birds continued to pass through. At least 12 were seen as I walked up a roadway parallel to their course; and other moving birds were heard. It was also noticed that they kept spaced 40 to 50 yards apart, keeping abreast of one another, traversing in a leisurely manner; and as they approached a rock maple woods, the tendency was to close in like passing through the neck of a bottle and, once through the woods, again to spread out. Their progress was rather fast; and they fed little, if at all. They often called, as though to locate each other, since they were keeping about 40 yards apart, as was easily noted when they crossed pasture and mowing land.

“I followed and watched in particular a male that continued keeping along ahead of me. He repeatedly crossed the road in a zigzag manner. Climbing to the top of a fence post or stump, he made lengthy observations, probably noting the progress of the other birds, and often answered their ringing calls. He, as well as the others, gave the appearance of a stranger in a new environment, truly a migrant. I noted how low the birds were passing, quite frequently flying not over 2 feet from the ground over open spaces, where long, bounding flights were made.”

L. McI. Terrill told Mr. Forbush (1927) that the few local breeding birds disappear from the vicinity of Montreal early in autumn, and others, in a very noticeable wave, appear toward the end of October or early in November.

Winter.—Aside from the regular migratory movements, the hairy woodpecker is much more given to wandering about in winter. It is apt to forsake its woodland haunts and travel about in search of food, coming frequently into the farmer’s orchard, into rural villages, and even into thickly settled communities in some of our larger cities. Here it often joins the merry parties at our winter feeding stations, feeding readily on the suet or scraps of meat provided for our insect-eating birds; and here the smaller birds show due respect for its larger size, or perhaps for its formidable beak, and it is usually allowed to eat alone. It seems to be a solitary bird at this season, for we seldom see more than one at a time. I find it not so constant and regular a visitor to my feeding station as the downy woodpecker and some other birds; it probably wanders about more.

Mr. Forbush (1927) writes: “During the inclement season it is said to require a sheltered place in which to sleep and, like the downy woodpecker, to excavate a hole in a tree for a sleeping chamber, but there is evidence that it does not always seek such shelter, as the late Charles E. Bailey and myself watched one for several winter evenings in a grove, clinging upright against a tree trunk in the usual woodpecker position. Night after night, the bird was there at dusk, remained there until dark, and was there also at daybreak each morning in precisely the same place.”

Joseph J. Hickey tells me that, around the lower Hudson River Valley in winter, woodpeckers obtain much of their food by deliberately scaling the bark off trees in search for their insect food. The Arctic three-toed woodpeckers work mainly on pines and hemlocks, but the hairies appear to confine their work to the hemlocks, using the same methods as the three-toed.

DISTRIBUTION

Range.—Northern and Central America; not regularly migratory.

The range of the hairy woodpecker extends north to Alaska (Kenai Peninsula, Fairbanks, and Fort Egbert); Yukon (Forty Mile, Fort Reliance, and Macmillan River); Mackenzie (Fort Wrigley, Lake Hardisty, and Fort Resolution); northern Saskatchewan (mouth of the Charlot River and Poplar Point); northern Manitoba (Grand Rapids, probably Fort Churchill, and probably York Factory); Ontario (Hat Island and Cobalt); Quebec (Blue Sea Lake, Quebec City, Godbout, Eskimo Bay, and Anticosti Island); and Newfoundland (Nicholsville and Raleigh). From this point the range extends southward along the Atlantic coast to southern Florida (Eau Gallie); the western Bahama Islands (Great Bahama, Abaco, and Andros); and Panama (Boquete). The southern boundary of the range extends westward from Panama (Boquete); Nicaragua (San Rafael); western Guatemala (Tecpam); Chiapas (San Cristobal); to Guerrero (Chilpancingo and Omilteme). From this point, northward through the mountains of western Mexico, northern Baja California (Sierra San Pedro Martir and Sierra Juarez); and the coastal districts of California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia, to Alaska (Chilkoot, Chitina Moraine, and the Kenai Peninsula).

As outlined, the range is for the entire species, which has, however, been so divided that no less than 13 subspecies are currently recognized as occupying the range north of Mexico, while still others occur in Central American countries. The typical eastern hairy woodpecker (D. v. villosus), occurs in the Eastern United States and southern Canada west to Manitoba, North Dakota, and Colorado and south to North Caralina and central Texas. The northern hairy woodpecker (D. v. septentrionalis) occupies the zone to the north, from southeastern Quebec, northwestward to western Mackenzie, Yukon, and central Alaska. The Newfoundland woodpecker (D. v. terraenovae) is found only on the island of that name. The southern hairy woodpecker (D. v. auduboni) occupies the southeastern part of the range from Missouri, Illinois, and western Virginia south to southeastern Texas and southern Florida. The Sitka hairy woodpecker (D. v. sitkensis) is found in southeastern Alaska and northern British Columbia. The Queen Charlotte woodpecker (D. v. picoideus) is found only on the group of islands of that name off the coast of British Columbia. Harris’s woodpecker (D. v. harrisi) occupies the coastal regions of southern British Columbia south to northwestern California. Cabanis’s woodpecker (D. v. hyloscopus) is confined to certain coastal and mountain areas of California, chiefly in the southern part. The Lower California hairy woodpecker (D. v. scrippsae) is restricted to the Sierra Juarez and the Sierra San Pedro Martir of Baja California. The Modoc woodpecker (D. v. orius) is found in the Sierra Nevada of central California north to Oregon and Washington and east to Nevada. The Rocky Mountain hairy woodpecker (D. v. monticola) is found through the Rocky Mountain region from central British Columbia south to northern New Mexico and east (in winter) to western South Dakota and Nebraska. The white-breasted woodpecker (D. v. leucothorectis) is found chiefly in Arizona and New Mexico but also east to central Texas and north to southern Utah. The Chihuahua woodpecker (D. v. icastus) occurs principally in western Mexico but occurs also in southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico.

Migration.—As stated above, the hairy woodpeckers are generally nonmigratory and may be found in midwinter even in the northern parts of their range, as Alaska, Mackenzie (Fort Simpson), and Manitoba (Aweme, Minnedosa, and Roseau River). Nevertheless, some individuals are given to a certain amount of wandering during the winter months, which explains the occasional records of some subspecies far outside of their normal range. There also is more or less vertical migration in the mountainous regions of the north and west, the birds descending into the lower valleys during the winter season. This is noted particularly in the Rocky Mountain form, which in winter has been taken east to Nebraska and South Dakota.

Despite the fact that during the past 18 years several hundred individuals of this species have been marked with numbered bands, and many have been subsequently recaptured, there is no evidence that any of these moved at any time more than a few miles from the point of banding.

• Egg dates.—British Columbia: 8 records, April 27 to June 24.
• California: 43 records, March 23 to June 21; 22 records, April 28 to May 29, indicating the height of the season.
• Colorado: 10 records, May 5 to June 18.
• Florida: 18 records, April 10 to May 16; 9 records, April 22 to 28.
• Illinois: 8 records, May 1 to 23.
• Iowa: 8 records, April 21 to May 15.
• Labrador: 5 records, May 26 to 30.
• Massachusetts: 17 records, May 1 to June 5; 9 records, May 10 to 19.
• Ontario: 8 records, May 6 to June 16.

DRYOBATES VILLOSUS SEPTENTRIONALIS (Nuttall)

NORTHERN HAIRY WOODPECKER

HABITS

This large northern race of the hairy woodpecker inhabits the Canadian Zone of northern North America, north almost to the limit of trees, from central Alaska and northern Canada southward. In the eastern portions of southern Canada it intergrades with typical villosus, and in northwestern Montana with monticola, where the ranges of these races meet. Specimens have been taken as far north as Fort Simpson, on the Mackenzie River, in latitude 62° N., and at Fort Reliance, on the upper Yukon River, Alaska, in about latitude 66° N. It may occur as a straggler farther north, where it can find sufficient tree growth, but it is said to be rare north of latitude 56° N., and apparently it does not reach the Arctic coast or the coast of Bering Sea. It is a decidedly larger bird than typical villosus, the white markings average rather larger, and the white is purer. In the southern portion of its range, where it begins to intergrade with villosus, these characters are, of course, less pronounced and many individuals are difficult to name.

Living in a region over much of which coniferous forests predominate, this woodpecker frequents and breeds in this type of forest. Winton and Donald Weydemeyer (1928) say that it is an abundant permanent resident in Lincoln County, Mont., where it intergrades with monticola. They also say:

In the valleys it is most numerous, during summer, in forests containing a large percentage stand of western larch (Larix occidentalis). The next trees in attractiveness seem to be Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga taxifolia), western yellow pine (Pinus ponderosa), and Engelmann spruce (Picea engelmanni), in the order named. In the Hudsonian zone it frequents trees of white-bark pine (Pinus albicaulis) and alpine larch (Larix lyallii). The species is noticeably rare or absent in forests containing nearly pure stands of western white pine (Pinus monticola), arborvitae (Thuja plicata), or lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta), except where the woods have been logged or injured by fire.

Nesting.—The same observers say: “In Lincoln County this species uses a wide variety of nesting sites. Of eight nests included in our records, three were in live aspens; one in a live cottonwood; one in a live larch; one in a dead larch, one in a dead Douglas fir; and one in a woodpecker nesting box.”

Ernest Thompson Seton (1890) found a nest in a tall poplar tree about 30 feet from the ground, in Manitoba; the hole was about a foot deep, 3 inches wide inside and 2 inches at the entrance. John Macoun (1909) quotes Rev. C. J. Young as saying: “Most of the nests I have seen have been in wet places or near water, and almost all were in white ash trees, from thirty to fifty feet from the ground. Two nests were in elm trees and one in a telegraph pole by the roadside not more than ten feet from the ground.”

Roderick MacFarlane (1908) writes: “On the 6th of May, 1885, Mr. Reid discovered a nest in a hole in a dry standing poplar tree near Fort Providence. There were eight eggs therein, and the parent was seen and shot. * * * At Fort St. James, Stuart’s Lake, on the 25th of May, 1889, a native hunter found a nest holding four fresh eggs in a similar position. Both parents in this instance were also observed near by and shot. On 4th June, in the same locality, an Indian girl brought us four eggs. * * * The nest was found in a hole in a dry pine tree, at a height of several feet above the ground.”

Henry Mousley (1916) says that near Hatley, Quebec, “as a rule the nest hole is somewhat high up but on one occasion I found one which was only three feet above the ground in a birch stub, containing four eggs, the entrance hole being two inches in diameter, extreme depth eleven inches and average width two and three quarters inches.”

P. B. Philipp and B. S. Bowdish (1919), referring to northern New Brunswick, say: “A nest with young was found in a dead maple stub in a burnt barren, on May 29, 1917. On May 30 of the same year another nest about fifteen feet up in a dead maple stub in a similar situation, contained four eggs, very slightly incubated. On June 9, 1917, a third nest in a cedar telephone pole beside a public road was examined. It was at a height of about nine feet; cavity 14½ inches deep; entrance 2⅛ inches in height by 2¼ inches in width. This nest contained four nearly fresh eggs.”

Eggs.—The northern hairy woodpecker lays three to five eggs; the eight eggs mentioned above by MacFarlane may have been the product of two females or eggs of the boreal flicker; in the latter case the collector may have shot the wrong parent. The eggs are like those of the eastern hairy woodpecker but average slightly larger. The measurements of 41 eggs average 25.39 by 20.10 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 28.45 by 22.10, 27.43 by 22.35, and 21.5 by 16.6 millimeters.

The plumage changes, food, behavior, voice, and other habits apparently do not differ materially from those of its southern relative. It is said to be a permanent resident throughout its range, but there is probably some southward migration or wandering from at least the northern portion of its range and perhaps from the southern parts also. That some individuals remain far north in winter is shown by the fact that the Fort Simpson specimen was taken on December 29, 1860. The Weydemeyers (1928) say that during winter, in northwestern Montana, “this woodpecker is commonly found in mixed broad-leaf and conifer associations along streams, but it is most abundant at that season in the larch woods of the valleys.”

DRYOBATES VILLOSUS AUDUBONI (Swainson)

SOUTHERN HAIRY WOODPECKER

Plate [5]

HABITS

In the Lower Austral Zone of the South Atlantic and Gulf States we find this small race of the hairy woodpecker. In addition to being decidedly smaller than its northern relative, the white of the under parts is less pure, and the white markings of the upper parts are somewhat smaller.

Arthur H. Howell (1932) says of its haunts in Florida: “The southern hairy woodpecker, though not particularly shy, prefers the wilder sections for its home. It occurs in a variety of situations—the open pine forests, oak hammocks, and the hardwoods of the deep river swamps. The birds are of a rather solitary disposition, and rarely is more than a single bird or a pair found near together.”

Nesting.—Mr. Howell (1932) says that “the nests are located 12 to 45 feet from the ground in holes excavated in dead oaks or willow stubs, or in cypresses growing on the edge of a swamp.” S. A. Grimes (1932) says: “A nest thirty feet up in a live cypress near Eastport [Florida] held three eggs on April 13. Two well feathered young were found in a hole fifteen feet up in a dead sweet gum in southern Duval County on May 13. A nest eight feet up in a pine stub in northern St. Johns County contained three heavily incubated eggs on May 11.”

Arthur T. Wayne (1910) says that in South Carolina “the nest is very hard to find; indeed I have found but six nests, two which contained eggs, and four which contained young. I have known this species to excavate a hole and raise a brood in a limb of a living live oak tree, but it generally excavates its hole in a dead tree and at a great height. A set of three fresh eggs was taken April 7, 1898, from a hole 40 feet from the ground in a dead pine. This hole was 14 inches deep. The young remain in the hole for more than a month after they are hatched.”

Harold H. Bailey (1913) says that in Virginia “dead stubs of gum and poplar treetops seem to be their favorite location for a nesting site, varying from 25 to 60 feet up, the cavity from eight to twelve inches deep. They are one of our earliest breeding birds, the drilling of the nesting cavity beginning the last week in March, and by April 10th to 15th finds a full complement or set of eggs, numbering from four to six.”

J. G. Suthard writes to me of a nest he found near Madisonville, Ky. The cavity was “excavated in a dead crab apple stub in open woodland. Only the female was observed excavating the hole and caring for the eggs, which proved to be infertile. No male was ever observed near the nesting stub, though it was carefully observed.” M. G. Vaiden tells me of a nest 9 feet up in a chinaberry tree in a yard at Rosedale, Miss., and another that was 23 feet up in a pecan tree and 3 feet out in a dead snag.

Eggs.—The southern hairy woodpecker is said to lay three to six eggs. The latter number must be unusual, as the set generally consists of three or four eggs. The eggs are scarcely distinguishable from those of other hairy woodpeckers, though they average somewhat smaller than those of the more northern races. The measurements of 42 eggs average 21.29 by 18.29 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 26.1 by 19.2, 25.8 by 19.8, 21 by 19, and 23.8 by 16.6 millimeters.

Food.—Major Bendire (1895) says that this subspecies seems to be fonder of fruit and berries than are the northern races and that “the young are fed largely on figs.” Audubon (1842) says that in the salt marshes about the mouths of the Mississippi “it alights against the stalks of the largest and tallest reeds, and perforates them as it is wont to bore into trees. * * * I have often observed it clinging to the stalks of the sugar-cane, boring them, and apparently greatly enjoying the sweet juices of that plant; and when I have seen it, in severe winter weather, attempting to bore the dried stalks of maize, I have thought it expected to find in them something equally pleasing to its taste.”

Milton P. Skinner (1928) says of these birds, in the sandhills of North Carolina: “In winter the hairy woodpeckers vary their diet of insects with various berries and dried wild fruits. They are particularly fond of the small black berries of the sour gum (Nyssa sylvatica). Soon after the early frosts the birds flock to these swamp trees and feast as long as the berries last.”

The main food supply of this and other woodpeckers consists of insects and their larvae, which are obtained by searching in the crevices in the bark of whatever trees are available, or drilling into the trunks and branches to find the grubs. Mr. Skinner (1928) saw one working on “a charred and dead stub of a shrub oak. Here it worked steadily for fifteen minutes pulling out small white grubs and borers. It drove its bill for three or four strokes up under a bit of bark and then pried the bark off with its bill as a lever. Then it attacked the semi-rotten wood so uncovered, directly. It did not seem to work so fast as a downy woodpecker, but then it was so busy eating grubs that it did not have to dig much.”

Behavior.—The same observer says:

They do not show a preference for any one kind of tree but are found on both living and dead shrub oaks, long-leafed pines, loblolly pine, sycamore, sour gum and sweet gum. They work on both trunks and limbs but usually at low heights, from the ground up to twenty feet above. On a vertical surface these birds work up, spiraling it and tapping it as they go. They move by a series of short hops, propping themselves each time with their tails. When hopping lightly along a horizontal limb they still use their tails as props. Perhaps their most astonishing feat is to spiral horizontal limbs, and to cling beneath them and hammer them with their backs down. Sometimes they work their way up to the very tip of slender shoots.

Even in a heavy wind they cling to the violently swaying twigs while eating, but they stay only a short time before flying to a tree trunk to perch and rest before trying it again. * * *

The flight of these birds is strong and undulating, with fast beating wings, and generally only from one tree to the next. Where the trees are not very close together, they swoop down to within a few feet of the ground and then fly with nearly level flight until they glide up to their next stopping place. Where they have to fly out across intervening open fields their flight becomes more undulatory, at times deeply so.

DRYOBATES VILLOSUS HARRISI (Audubon)

HARRIS’S WOODPECKER

Plates [4], [5]

HABITS

The range of this well-marked subspecies is now restricted to the humid coast belt from southern British Columbia southward to Humboldt County, Calif. In 1895, Bendire wrote:

Until within the last few years all the Hairy Woodpeckers from the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific coast have been considered as belonging to this subspecies. * * *

The breeding range of this race, as now considered, is a very limited one, and is probably coextensive with its geographical distribution. It is apparently confined to the immediate vicinity of the coast, and is not found at any great distance inland. Among the specimens collected by me at Fort Klamath, Oregon (mostly winter birds), there are two which might be called intermediates between this and the more recently separated Dryobates villosus hyloscopus, but the majority are clearly referable to the latter. In the typical Harris’s woodpecker the under parts are much darker, a smoky brown, in fact; it is also somewhat larger and very readily distinguishable from the much lighter-colored and somewhat smaller Cabanis’s woodpecker.

Dawson and Bowles (1909) say: “Doctor Cooper judged the Harris to be the most abundant Woodpecker in Western Washington; and this, with the possible exception of the Flicker (Colaptes cafer saturatior), is still true. The bird ventures well out upon the eastern slopes of the Cascade Mountains, and is found sparingly in the higher mountain valleys; but its favorite resorts are burns and the edges of clearings, rather than the depths of the woods.”

Johnson A. Neff (1928) quotes Dr. I. N. Gabrielson as saying: “The Harris woodpecker is found throughout western Oregon from the western slope of the Cascades to the coast, altho in the Rogue River Valley some specimens which are close to ‘orius’ have been taken. I have one labeled ‘orius’ by Dr. H. C. Oberholser, also have typical Harris from this district, so that this is probably the region of intergradation between these two forms.”

Harris’s woodpecker, like many other races of the humid Northwest coast region, is darkly colored, one of the most easily recognized of all the hairy woodpeckers. Even in Audubon’s day it was recognized, described, figured, and named by him in honor of his friend Edward Harris. Ridgway (1914) describes it as “similar to D. v. hyloscopus, but under parts (including lateral rectrices) light drab or buffy drab-gray, instead of white or nearly white, the head-stripes and stripe on back also usually more or less suffused with the same color, often uniformly light drab; average size slightly larger.”

Courtship.—Theed Pearse (1934) gives us the following interesting description of the courtship display of this woodpecker:

There were two males on the limb of a small cedar and my attention was first drawn to them by their note, which is very similar to the flicker’s “wickety” note but softer, and might almost be described as “caressingly soft.” Both birds were calling.

The displaying bird would draw in its head so that no neck was apparent, with beak pointed outwards and upwards and would then slowly swing the upper part of the body from side to side, thereby bringing into play the red nape marking. Once the bird very rapidly lifted its wings into an upright position, at other times there was a quivering flicking motion of the wings as they lay against the sides.

The two birds flew to another branch, settling side by side and instantly each froze, the neck drawn in and the beak pointed upwards. They were perched sideways on the branch and were displaying the white markings in the tail which each of them would slightly spread and turn out (to one side). The feathers of the back were at the same time hunched up as though to show up the white markings there also. They did this several times before flying off together.

Nesting.—Although this is evidently a common bird within its restricted range, surprisingly little has appeared in print regarding its nesting habits. Authentic eggs seem to be very rare in collections; most of the eggs in collections, of which I have the records, that are labeled harrisi, prove to be referable to one of the neighboring subspecies.

D. E. Brown writes to me:

Its nesting cavities may be at any height from 4 feet to well over 100 feet from the ground. I found a nest 8 feet up in an 8-inch dead fir stub in a dry open locality. The female flushed from the nest, and the date was just right for fresh eggs, May 6. The cavity was carefully opened. It was 16 inches deep and contained a single egg. This egg was so fresh and the shell so clear that the yolk could be plainly seen. The cavity was carefully repaired with bark from the stub, held in place with black thread. Both birds were near all this time, complaining loudly. I returned in five days. The bark was still in place, but the egg was gone. The dust from the decaying stub, where the egg had been, was very dry, and I am of the opinion that the parent bird had removed the egg.

G. D. Sprot has sent me a beautiful photograph (pl. 4) of a nesting site of this woodpecker in a dead alder stump in a coniferous forest clearing, near Mill Bay, Vancouver Island, taken May 23, 1928.

Dawson and Bowles (1909) say:

The nest of this bird is usually placed well up in a small dead fir tree in some burn or slashing on dry ground. It is about ten inches deep and has no lining save fine chips, among which the crystal white eggs, four or five in number, lie partially imbedded. Incubation is begun from the last week in April to the last week in May, according to altitude, and but one brood is raised in a season. These Woodpeckers are exceptionally valiant in defense of their young, the male in particular becoming almost beside himself with rage at the appearance of an enemy near the home nest.

S. F. Rathbun sends me the following note on a Harris’s woodpecker that made an attempt to dig a nesting hole in a small young fir topped about 10 feet up: “The tree had been cut off so that it could be used as one of the supports of a cross piece to which a swing was attached. The woodpecker began to dig a hole in the topped upright, and the owner of the place called me up and wanted to know what the bird was and what it was up to. I told him all about it and suggested that he keep away from the stub. Two weeks later, I asked him how the bird was getting on. He said at first the bird was busy digging away every day, but of late seemed to have something the matter with it, for ‘lately every day it just sat with its head sticking out of the hole and did no work on it.’ I cut a piece from the edge of the entrance and quickly found out. When the crossbar for the swing had been nailed to the sapling, a 10-inch spike was used to hold it; and this had gone nearly through the sapling. The woodpecker ran into this spike, as it was digging the hole, after progressing 6 inches or so downward. It did not seem able to go around the spike, although it had enlarged the cavity an inch on each side of the heavy nail and had cut away the wood for 2 inches or more below the spike. But the job proved to be too much for the bird, and it eventually gave up and disappeared. I told my friend to pull the spike and maybe next year the bird would be back. He followed my suggestion, and, the following spring, a Harris’s woodpecker showed up, dug a hole in the stub, and raised its young. This was repeated the next spring after, and then no return of the bird. So quite likely it may have been the same woodpecker.”

Eggs.—Harris’s woodpecker apparently lays four or five eggs, probably seldom fewer or more. Bendire (1895) was evidently unable to locate any properly identified eggs of this race, and I have not fared much better. The eggs are probably indistinguishable from the eggs of other hairy woodpeckers of similar size. The measurements of 34 eggs average 25.29 by 18.91 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 27.9 by 19.6, 25.46 by 20.32, 22.86 by 18.29, and 23.5 by 17.5 millimeters.

Food.—J. A. Neff (1928) says:

A total of 57 stomachs of hairy woodpeckers were taken for the present study, over three fourths of them of the Harris type. The months were represented by fairly even numbers of specimens. Analysis of these stomachs shows a considerable variation from the results of Professor Beal’s California studies. The total animal food averaged 82.00 percent, while vegetable matter made up the other 18.00 percent.

The larvae of wood-boring beetles, Cerambycids and Buprestids, composed 49.00 percent of the total. This total is unexceeded in Federal studies of birds. Since these two groups of borers include species doing enormous damage to both forest and ornamental trees, as well as to orchards, this item of food alone almost settles the question of the utility of having woodpeckers. * * *

The vegetable food was of little value economically. Fruits, of small wild varieties, totaled 6.00 percent, and seeds, mostly of coniferous trees, averaged 12.00 percent.

Behavior.—Taylor and Shaw (1927) made the following interesting observation:

As is well known, western Washington is a region of copious rainfall. During the frequent downpours one can not help speculating on the manner in which the different birds and mammals avoid injury from the damp and chill of the storm. The thick foliage of firs and hemlocks is well suited, in many instances, to serve as a thatched roof: and in the deep woods there are many big branches and large logs under which birds—and mammals too—find dry retreats. During the heaviest rain of the summer a Harris woodpecker was frightened from its shelter beneath a huge log in the heavy forest of Tahoma Creek Canyon. Here the bird was keeping perfectly dry. One can imagine its displeasure at being driven out from its comfortable refuge into the drenching rain.

Winter.—D. E. Brown says in his notes: “Early in fall Harris’s woodpecker very often excavates a cavity that is its winter home. It can be found there every night and quite often in the daytime on stormy days. It is not always secure in this retreat. Such a cavity was made in a partly dead stub, about 20 feet high, just back of my house. Frequent visits were made to find out how much the nest was used. At first the bird, a male, would fly to a nearby tree when I rapped on the stub, but soon it contented itself with just coming to the opening. One time, while I was in plain sight of the stub, a western pileated woodpecker alighted at the cavity and proceeded to open it up, which it did clear to the bottom in less than three minutes. It had taken the Harris about a week to dig it out.”

Dawson and Bowles (1909) say: “The Harris woodpecker visits the winter troupes only in a patronizing way. He is far too restless and independent to be counted a constant member of any little gossip club, and, except briefly during the mating season and in the family circle, he is rarely to be seen in the company of his own kind.”

DRYOBATES VILLOSUS HYLOSCOPUS Cabanis and Heine

CABANIS’S WOODPECKER

HABITS

The hairy woodpeckers of the coast district of California from Mendocino County southward, the mountains of southern California, and the southern Sierra Nevada, as far east as White Mountains of California, are now known by the above name. This race is somewhat smaller than harrisi and decidedly smaller than orius, its neighboring races to the northward; its under parts are much lighter colored than in harrisi; these parts are described by Ridgway (1914) as “dull grayish or brownish white or pale drab-grayish or buffy grayish.” This and the Sierra woodpecker (orius) seem to form connecting links between the dark-breasted harrisi and the white-breasted Rocky Mountain forms, monticola and leucothorectis, both of which are decidedly larger also.

Dr. Joseph Grinnell (1908) says of the distribution of this woodpecker in the San Bernardino Mountains in southern California: “This was the most widely distributed species of woodpecker in the region, occurring throughout the timbered portions, irrespective of zones. It was common from Santa Ana Cañon to the summit of Sugarloaf, 9,800 feet, and nearly to timber line on San Gorgonio peak. On the desert side the species was noted as low as Cactus Flat, 6,000 feet, where one was seen in some golden oaks in a ravine, August 16, 1905.”

Courtship.—The drumming of woodpeckers in the spring on some resonant limb or tree trunk is an important part of the courtship urge, as a warning to any rival, or as a call to a possible mate. Dr. Grinnell (1908) shows how the manner of drumming may also serve as a recognition call; he says: “The resonant rattling drum identified this species from any other of this region. Near Dry lake, 9,000 feet altitude, dead tamarack pines were selected for this purpose, and on June 23, 1905, I listened for many minutes to a remarkable demonstration of this kind. Different branches were tattoed in rapid succession, so that a xylophone-like variety of tones was produced, very impressive and far-carrying through the otherwise quiet forest.”

Nesting.—Major Bendire (1895) writes:

In California Cabanis’ Woodpecker is common in the mountains, but in the lowlands in the southern part of this State Mr. F. Stephens considers it a rather rare summer resident. He found it breeding in a cottonwood tree, near San Bernardino, on March 21, 1885. Mr. Lyman Belding took several nests of this subspecies in Calaveras County, in the Sierra Nevadas; in one, found on June 6, 1879, which had been excavated in a dead pine stump, 12 feet from the ground, the eggs, three in number, were on the point of hatching. In his notes he says: “I scared the female from it and prevented her return by inserting a stick, the end of which protruded for several feet. When she found she could not enter she gave several cries, which brought the male, who hopped up and down the stick a few times, striking it with his bill and screaming angrily, pausing occasionally, and apparently deliberating on the best method of extracting it.” Another nest, found by him on July 10, 1880, was located only 3 feet from the ground, and contained young which were still in the nest on the 20th. Mr. Charles A. Allen informs me that along the Sacramento River, in California, it breeds in sycamores and willows, but that it is not common there.

Eggs.—Major Bendire (1895) says:

The number of eggs laid to a set varies from three to six; those of four are by far the most common; sets of five are only occasionally met with, while sets of six are very unusual. * * * The eggs lie on the fine chips left in the bottom of the cavity, and are occasionally well packed into these, so that only about one-half of the egg is visible. They resemble the eggs of Dryobates villosus in color, but those of an elliptical ovate shape are more common than the oval and elliptical ovals, averaging, therefore, more in length, while there is proportionally less difference in their short diameter.

The measurements of 23 eggs average 24.49 by 18.38 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 25.7 by 18.2, 24.2 by 19.7, 22.8 by 18.1, and 24.9 by 16.5 millimeters.

Young.—Mrs. Irene G. Wheelock (1904) says: “Both sexes share the labors of excavating, brooding the eggs, and feeding the young. Incubation lasts about fifteen days, and the young remain nearly four weeks in the nest, being fed most of that time by regurgitation. After leaving they are fed by the parents for at least two weeks, and usually return to the nest at night to sleep.”

Food.—W. Leon Dawson (1923) writes: “Nearly half of the Cabanis Woodpecker’s food consists of the larvae of wood-boring beetles (the Cerambycidae and Buprestidae); and of the remainder the caterpillars of various injurious moths form a large per cent. Wild raspberries and blackberries are eaten in summer, and certain hardy fruits, such as cornel berries, acorns, and the pits of the islay, or evergreen cherry (Prunus ilicifolia), eke out the winter sustenance.”

Referring to its manner of feeding, Milton P. Skinner says in his notes: “On August 10, 1933, I saw a Cabanis working on both the trunk and the limbs of a small Douglas fir. It worked all around a horizontal limb and really seemed to be under the limb more than above. It also worked on upright branches as well. I have also seen a Cabanis feeding on the bark of a lodgepole pine. One day I found one on a dead black oak, scaling off dead bark to get at the insects beneath. So far as I can tell, these birds, in the Sequoia National Park, seem to prefer to pick food from the surface and furrows in the bark, and do not bore into the bark and wood as much as other woodpeckers. During my work among the Big Trees, I noticed that these birds seem to avoid the sequoia’s bark; but at one place I found a living tree with many holes bored in the old wood of its charred base, where it was unprotected by bark.”

Behavior.—Mr. Skinner’s notes say that “this woodpecker has quite a few mannerisms of its own. One, seen flying across a meadow, went first to the limbs of Douglas firs, then to a small dead limb of a sequoia, then to the limb of a fir, and then to the trunk of the same fir. It perched lengthwise of limb and trunk each time. And this procedure was followed again and again on different days. Usually the Cabanis perches crosswise on a horizontal limb, especially when resting or preening, but lengthwise on erect, or nearly erect, trunks and limbs when feeding.

“Although this woodpecker almost always flies to the exact spot it selects, its flight through the forest is undulatory. The undulations are due to the fact that it progresses by a series of wing beats. At the end of each series, it seems to actually close its wings and shoot forward with the impetus gained.”

DRYOBATES VILLOSUS MONTICOLA Anthony

ROCKY MOUNTAIN HAIRY WOODPECKER

HABITS

This large, white-breasted hairy woodpecker inhabits the Rocky Mountain region, in the Canadian and Transition Zones, from central British Columbia and Montana southward to eastern Utah and northern New Mexico, and eastward to western South Dakota and western Nebraska. Ridgway (1914) characterizes it as “similar, in large size and whiteness of under parts, to D. v. septentrionalis, but with white spots on wing-coverts much reduced in size or number, or altogether wanting.” It evidently intergrades with septentrionalis in Montana and Wyoming and probably with the more western races west of the Rocky Mountains.

Milton P. Skinner tells me that in the Yellowstone National Park it “occurs at all elevations from the lowest at 5,500 feet to timberline at 9,500 feet above sea level, but never far from a tree of some kind. It is a resident bird here but moves down from the mountain heights at the approach of winter.”

Aretas A. Saunders (1921) says of its status in Montana: “A common permanent resident throughout the western half of the state in the mountains. Winters mainly in the valleys in cottonwood groves, but does not breed there. * * * The eastern limits of its range are evidently in the eastern foothills of the mountains. Just what form breeds in the more eastern mountain ranges is not definitely determined. In the mountains this bird has been recorded by all observers. It is common everywhere, and usually the commonest of the mountain woodpeckers.”

Nesting.—The following remarks by Major Bendire (1895), under hyloscopus, evidently refer to this subspecies: “Mr. Denis Gale found it breeding in Boulder County, Colorado, on May 28, 1886, in a live aspen tree, at an altitude of about 8,500 feet. The nest contained five eggs, in which incubation was somewhat advanced. Mr. William G. Smith also reports it as common in Colorado, coming down into the valleys in winter. He says it is the earliest of the Woodpeckers to breed, that it commences nesting in the latter part of April, and usually excavates its holes in old dead pines, frequently at a considerable distance from the ground, and that he has seen full-grown young by June 1.”

J. K. Jensen (1923) says of this woodpecker, in northern Santa Fe County, N. Mex.:

Quite common in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, from 8,000 to 11,000 feet. June 21, 1920, I found a nest thirty feet up in a large quaking aspen. This tree stands on the edge of a place where an avalanche has plowed its way down through the timber on the mountain side, depositing trees and rocks in a great heap for hundreds of feet around the tree. The nest contained young, and judging from the noise they made, were quite well developed. The parent birds were very noisy.

May 22, 1921, I made my way through four feet of snow to the same tree. A new nest had been made, and the female flew off when I was about 150 feet away. I cut into the nest and found a set of four eggs on which incubation had just commenced. The altitude at this point is 11,000 feet. May 26, 1922, I found a nest with young about seventy-five feet up in an aspen. This was in Santa Fe Canyon at an altitude of 8,000 feet.

Eggs.—The eggs of the Rocky Mountain hairy woodpecker are similar to the eggs of other hairy woodpeckers of similar size. The measurements of 33 eggs average 24.89 by 18.49 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 28.08 by 18.03, 27.0 by 20.1, 23.37 by 17.78, and 24.38 by 17.27 millimeters.

Food.—Mr. Skinner says, in his notes, that this woodpecker “seeks its food on the trunks of lodgepole and flexilis pines, cedars, firs, aspens, willows, and even electric-light and telephone poles; it prefers dead and diseased trees and stubs to work on, probably because of more borers and grubs. At Basin, and over 7,000 feet elevation, I found a female where I could watch her, only 5 feet away from the lodgepole trunk on which she was working. She worked down, tapping here and there as she went. Whenever a tap revealed a borer, she scaled off the bark with quick right and left strokes, having a slight lever motion at the end, and always secured from one to six bark-borer grubs. Evidently the tap told her whether it was worth while to search further, for she never made a mistake and performed no useless labor.”

J. A. Munro (1930) writes: “During the winter of 1928-29 a male hairy woodpecker frequently was seen feeding on Virginia creeper berries in competition with several red-shafted flickers. On one occasion the same bird visited an apple tree, attracted by a few apples that still clung to the bare branches. Standing crossways on a branch, in the ordinary position of a perching bird, he rapidly stabbed his bill downward into the top of an apple. After doing this several times he flew to another portion of the tree and repeated the performance.”

DRYOBATES VILLOSUS PICOIDEUS Osgood

QUEEN CHARLOTTE WOODPECKER

HABITS

Dr. Wilfred H. Osgood (1901) described the hairy woodpecker of the Queen Charlotte Islands, as a full species, Dryobates picoideus. He says it can be distinguished from all other members of the villosus group by the black markings on the back and characterizes it as “similar in general to Dryobates v. harrisi; bill slightly smaller; middle of back barred and spotted with black; flanks streaked with black.” He says that this woodpecker is not abundant on the islands; during a period of over a month spent in active collecting he saw only six, all of which were collected.

I cannot find that anything has been published on the habits of the Queen Charlotte woodpecker, which probably do not differ essentially from those of harrisi, to which it is closely related and which inhabits a similar, humid coast environment. There are a number of skins of this race in various collections, but, so far as I know, no authentic eggs have ever found their way into any American collection. Very little exploration has been done in the interior of the Queen Charlotte Islands, and we know very little about the habits of its birds.

DRYOBATES VILLOSUS TERRAENOVAE Batchelder

NEWFOUNDLAND WOODPECKER

HABITS

Charles F. Batchelder (1908), who discovered and described this race of the hairy woodpecker, characterized it as—

Similar to typical Dryobates villosus, but slightly larger, the black areas of the upper parts increased, the white areas reduced both in number and in size, especially in the remiges and wing coverts. * * * Dryobates villosus terraenovae is much smaller than D. v. leucomelas, and is, of course, even more remote from it in coloring than from true villosus. Between it and D. v. hyloscopus and D. v. monticola there is a striking resemblance in coloring, but the wide area—occupied throughout its extent either by villosus or by leucomelas—that intervenes between the ranges of these two Western subspecies and that of terraenovae, precludes the possibility of immediate intergradation, while the utter dissimilarity of the climatic conditions of their respective habitats forbids the supposition that like causes in environment have developed like characters; apparently this is a case where superficial resemblances have arisen entirely independently of climatic influences.

I found the Newfoundland woodpecker fairly common in the heavily timbered valleys of the Fox Island and Sandy Rivers in Newfoundland in 1912. The timber in the flat river bottom and on the islands in the Fox Island River is almost wholly made up of deciduous trees, mainly poplar, canoe birch, ash, mountain ash (which grows to a very large size), and alder, mixed with a few spruces. On the surrounding hillsides the forest growth consists mainly of firs and spruces, with plenty of canoe and yellow birches, poplars, larches, and mountain ashes. The Sandy River runs through a fairly level and heavily timbered region, with forests of large firs, red, white, and black spruces, mixed with some birches and poplars. These two regions were the only places where we found this and the downy woodpecker, nesting in the deciduous trees. It has been observed by others in other places, and doubtless it occurs wherever there is heavy timber, with a fair sprinkling of deciduous trees, mainly along the streams and about the shores of lakes.

I can find nothing noted on its habits that is in any way different from those of the other eastern races. So far as I know, its eggs have never been taken.

DRYOBATES VILLOSUS ICASTUS Oberholser

CHIHUAHUA WOODPECKER

Plate [6]

HABITS

The hairy woodpeckers of the Canadian and Transition Zones in the mountains of northwestern Mexico, southern Arizona, and southern New Mexico are referable to this race. In describing and naming it, Dr. H. C. Oberholser (1911a) characterized it as “similar to Dryobates villosus hyloscopus, but bill much smaller, and wing slightly longer. * * * This bird is decidedly smaller than Dryobates villosus leucothorectis, as well as noticeably smoky-tinged on the under surface, instead of pure white; and it is in size so very much inferior to Dryobates villosus orius, that it is readily distinguishable.”

Harry S. Swarth (1904) says of the haunts of this woodpecker in the Huachuca Mountains, Arizona: “Fairly abundant in the higher parts of the mountains, from 7,000 feet upward. They may be seen almost anywhere in that region, but for breeding purposes, seem to particularly favor the dense thickets of quaking asp.” In 1922, Frank C. Willard and I found them breeding mainly among the tall pines near the summit of these mountains, above 7,500 feet. From here to the summit, about 9,000 feet, the land is rolling, mostly in gentle slopes, and covered with a fine, open, parklike forest of tall pines of two or three species, many of them from 80 to 100 feet high. The many dead, standing trees and stumps offered suitable nesting sites for pygmy nuthatches, Mexican creepers, and Chihuahua woodpeckers. We did not see any of these woodpeckers in the spruce and fir belt, below 7,000 feet.

Nesting.—On May 7, 1922, in the pine region near the summit of the Huachuca Mountains, described above, we located two pairs of Chihuahua woodpeckers and saw some new excavations in the dead pine stubs, in which they seemed to be preparing to nest, but they evidently had not yet laid their eggs. On May 15 we returned and found two of the nests occupied (pl. 6). The first nest was about 40 feet from the ground in a dead pine stub at an elevation of about 7,900 feet; the cavity was about 15 inches deep and contained four fresh eggs. Farther up, near the summit, at about 8,500 feet, we found the second nest; this was only about 15 feet up in a large dead pine, in a hole we had previously passed by as an old one; but we saw the female enter the hole and stay there, so we chopped it out and found three heavily incubated eggs in a cavity about 12 inches deep. Frank C. Willard (1918) tells of a pair of these woodpeckers that “had nested for several seasons in the dead top of a tall pine. One winter, this broke off and lodged in the top of an adjoining pine. Even with their nest site in this apparently insecure position the woodpeckers were unwilling to leave it, and their new nest was found dug in the same old tree top in its inverted position.”

Eggs.—The eggs of the Chihuahua woodpecker do not differ materially from those of other hairy woodpeckers of similar size. The measurements of three eggs in the author’s collection are 24.6 by 17.2, 24.5 by 17.7, and 24.6 by 18.0 millimeters.

Winter.—Mr. Swarth (1904) says: “They do not seem to remain through the winter months; at any rate I saw none during February, 1903 nor did any appear until March 17, when I secured two and saw one other. Ten days later they were quite abundant. The winter of 1902-1903 was quite cold, with a great deal of snow on the ground, and it is possible that with a milder winter they might remain the year through. There does not seem to be any vertical migration on the part of this woodpecker, for I saw none below 7,000 feet, and but very few as low as that.” Bendire (1895), however, writes: “In southern Arizona it does not appear to breed in the lower valleys, but I have shot several near Tucson in winter.”

DRYOBATES VILLOSUS SITKENSIS Swarth

SITKA HAIRY WOODPECKER

HABITS

In the coast region of southeastern Alaska and northern British Columbia we find a race that Harry S. Swarth (1911b) says, in describing and naming it, “differs from D. v. harrisi mainly in the very much paler, less smoky hue of the lower parts, and the more buffy coloration of the nasal tufts. Somewhat like D. v. picoideus, but paler colored below, and lacking the barred rectrices of that race.” He says elsewhere (1922):

Sitkensis, in its relatively light ventral coloration, is intermediate between the extremely dark harrisi and the white-breasted monticola. The dark-breasted type of coloration reaches its extreme development in picoideus of the Queen Charlotte Islands, interposed between the ranges of harrisi and sitkensis. Thus, while specimens of sitkensis as laid out in trays may be arranged to illustrate a step between harrisi and monticola, the geographical distribution of the several forms is not in accordance with this idea. The geographical chains appear to lie as follows: Starting with the white-breasted races of the interior of the northwest, septentrionalis and monticola, there is an extension westward on the coast of a slightly darker breasted race, sitkensis. Starting again with the dark breasted type, harrisi, of the Puget Sound region, and going northward, we reach the extremely dark colored picoideus. Thus, sitkensis and harrisi are really far apart genetically, and the appearance of sitkensis as a seeming intergrade between monticola and harrisi must be explained on grounds other than those of such actual intermediate relationship. Sitkensis, as an offshoot of the white-breasted type of the interior, may have arrived at the humid coast at too recent date to be yet affected by its surroundings to the extent that harrisi and picoideus have been; or it may be more resistant to such an environment. In either case the slight modification of the clear white breast of monticola produced by the humid surroundings would result in an apparent intergrade toward harrisi.

On the habits of this subspecies, which probably do not differ materially from those of other hairy woodpeckers, I can find only the following brief comment by Joseph Dixon, quoted by Dr. Joseph Grinnell (1909): “At the three lakes back of Mole Harbor I saw more of these birds than at all other places put together. Their slow drumming sounded so similar to the clicking of a telegraph instrument that we dubbed them ‘telegraph woodpeckers’ to distinguish them from the sapsuckers.” So far as I know, the nest of this woodpecker has never been reported. It is probably resident throughout its breeding range.

DRYOBATES VILLOSUS ORIUS Oberholser

MODOC WOODPECKER

HABITS

This race of the hairy woodpecker occupies a rather extensive range in the interior of California, Oregon, and Washington, west of the range of monticola in the Rocky Mountains, north of the range of hyloscopus in southern California, and east of the range of harrisi in the above States. As might be expected, it is more or less intermediate in size or coloration between the surrounding races. Dr. H. C. Oberholser (1911a), who described and named it, characterized it as “resembling Dryobates villosus leucothorectis, but larger; lower parts usually brownish white, instead of pure white.”

Grinnell and Storer (1924) say of its haunts in the Yosemite region: “As with most of the allied forms, the present race ranges through several life zones, from the scattered digger pines at Pleasant Valley eastward through the main forest belt to the sparse tracts of Jeffrey pines in the vicinity of Mono Lake. It is nowhere really common, even for a woodpecker; it reaches its greatest numbers in the upper part of the Transition Zone and in the Canadian Zone.”

In the Lassen Peak region, according to Grinnell, Dixon, and Linsdale (1930), “this woodpecker foraged over the trunks and larger limbs of many kinds of trees both in the forests proper and where there were a few trees or restricted tracts of trees in the mainly unforested parts of the section. Much of each bird’s time was spent on coniferous trees, either living or dead ones, but nesting excavations were many of them in trunks of deciduous trees.”

Bendire (1895) says that, at Fort Klamath, Oreg., “it appears to be especially abundant in tracts in which the timber has been killed by fire, and where many of the slowly rotting trunks still remain standing. Such burnings are frequently met with in the mountains, and seem to attract several species of Woodpeckers, presumably on account of the abundance of suitable food to be found.”

Courtship.—Grinnell and Storer (1924) say: “At Chinquapin, on May 19, 1919, a pair of these woodpeckers was seen going through their courting antics. A male was in a large yellow pine at the edge of a logged-over area, calling almost incessantly. His usual speenk had become spenk-ter-ter-ter, a staccato run repeated every few seconds. The female answered in like voice but uttered the trill less often. The male changed his location many times, and after protracted calling on his part, the female flew to the same tree.”

Nesting.—Bendire (1895) writes:

I took my first nest near Camp Harney, Oregon, on May 29, 1875, in a canyon on the southern slopes of the Blue Mountains, at an altitude of about 5,000 feet. The cavity was excavated in the main trunk of a nearly dead aspen, about 12 feet from the ground. The entrance hole was about 1¾ inches in diameter, and the cavity about 9 inches deep. It contained four much incubated eggs. The female was in the hole, and stayed there looking out until I had struck the tree several times with a hatchet, when she flew off and alighted on one of the limbs of the tree, uttering cries of distress, which brought the male, who was still more demonstrative, hopping from limb to limb, squealing and scolding at me and pecking at the limbs on which he perched. At Fort Klamath, Oregon, it was somewhat more common, and here I took several of its nests. * * * Dead or badly decayed trees are preferred to live ones for nesting purposes, and deciduous trees to conifers; it also nests occasionally in firs and madrone trees.

Milton P. Skinner says, in his notes, that “in the Yosemite National Park, one nested in a living willow trunk about ten feet above the ground.” Grinnell, Dixon, and Linsdale (1930) say that, in the Lassen Peak region, “aspens and cottonwoods, dead at core, seemed to be preferred nesting trees, although other kinds were also used. Nest holes, when in conifers, were made in dead and decaying trunks or stubs.”

Eggs.—Three or four eggs make up the usual set for this woodpecker. They are indistinguishable from the eggs of other hairy woodpeckers, though Bendire (1895) says that “those of an elliptical ovate shape are more common than the oval and elliptical ovals.” The measurements of 15 eggs average 24.70 by 18.80 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 26.4 by 20.6 and 21.5 by 16.2 millimeters.

Young.—Grinnell, Dixon, and Linsdale (1930) write: “Near Eagle Lake Resort on June 12, 1929, an adult was feeding a nestful of young woodpeckers in a cavity three meters up in a yellow-pine stub close to the lake. The nest hole had been freshly cut. Only the female was seen to carry food. The young were large enough to be fed without the parent entirely entering the cavity. When the observer walked near the nest stub the parent became much excited and flew about calling loudly for several minutes. The young birds called when the parent came with food.”

Food.—Grinnell and Storer (1924) say:

The Modoc Woodpecker forages on both evergreen and deciduous trees, favoring the latter, perhaps, during the winter months. In summer it is usually rather quiet, particularly so as compared with the noisy California Woodpecker. It gains much of its food in the outer portions of the bark, where a few strokes of moderate intensity enable it to secure any insect or grub living near the surface of the tree.

At the margin of the forest above Coulterville, May 31, 1915, a Modoc Woodpecker was seen foraging in a yellow pine. The tree in question had recently been killed by the boring beetles which were common in the western forests that year. The woodpecker was going over the tree in systematic manner, working out and in along one branch, then ascending the trunk to the next branch where it would repeat the performance. The bird was flaking off the outer layers of the bark without much evident expenditure of effort, for little noise of tapping was heard; it was feeding presumably on the boring beetles or their larvae.

Bendire (1895) writes: “It is one of our most active Woodpeckers, always busy searching for food, which consists principally of injurious larvæ and eggs of insects, varied occasionally with a diet of small berries and seeds, and in winter sometimes of piñon nuts, pine seeds, and acorns. At this season I have often seen this species around slaughter houses, picking up stray bits of meat or fat, and have also seen it pecking at haunches of venison hung up in the open air.”

Behavior.—Mr. Skinner says, in his notes, that “the Modoc hairy seems very unsociable. One that was feeding on a cottonwood chased a visiting red-breasted sapsucker away from that tree to another, and then from tree to tree. But, when a California woodpecker came to its tree, the Modoc hairy promptly flew away.”

Voice.—Major Bendire (1895) says that this woodpecker “is very noisy, especially in the early spring. It likewise is a great drummer, and utters a variety of notes, some of which sound like ‘kick-kick, whitoo, whitoo, whit-whit, wi-wi-wi-wi,’ and a hoarse guttural one, somewhat like ‘kheak-kheak’ or ‘khack-khack’.”

DRYOBATES VILLOSUS SCRIPPSAE Huey

LOWER CALIFORNIA HAIRY WOODPECKER

HABITS

Laurence M. Huey (1927) who described and named this woodpecker, characterized it as “similar to Dryobates villosus hyloscopus Cabanis and Heine, but decidedly smaller. In fully adult birds, the dusky white of the breast extends farther down on the breast than does that on examples from the northern mountains.” He gives, as its range, “the pine clad slopes of the Sierra Juarez and Sierra San Pedro Martir, Lower California, Mexico. * * * The range of this southern race does not extend north of the International Boundary, as specimens examined from the mountains of San Diego County, California, are in no way inclined toward the race D. v. scrippsae, but are counterparts of typical D. v. hyloscopus from the northern localities. In fact, the only variation that could point toward a ‘blending’ is found in the Sierra Juarez birds, but their average falls so near that of the birds from the Sierra San Pedro Martir that the name proposed herewith should apply.”

This southern race probably does not differ materially in its habits from other hairy woodpeckers, except in so far as it is affected by its environment.

DRYOBATES VILLOSUS LEUCOTHORECTIS Oberholser

WHITE-BREASTED WOODPECKER

HABITS

Northward and eastward from the range of the Chihuahua woodpecker (icastus) and southward from the range of the Rocky Mountain hairy woodpecker (monticola) lies the range of this white-breasted race of the hairy woodpecker, extending from southern Utah, through Arizona and New Mexico, into central western Texas. It is evidently a smaller edition of monticola, for Dr. Harry C. Oberholser (1911a), in describing and naming it, says that it is “much like Dryobates villosus monticola, but decidedly smaller; wing coverts practically always without white spots.”

Dr. Edgar A. Mearns (1890b) says of its haunts in the mountains of northern Arizona:

Breeds commonly throughout the pine belt, often ascending higher in summer, then preferring aspens to the fir and spruce woods of higher altitudes. It very rarely descends to the cottonwoods of the Verde Valley to fraternize with its smaller relative, Baird’s woodpecker, and only when the mountain timber is icy or the weather uncommonly fierce; then it is usually accompanied by flocks of Cassin’s Purple Finches, Red-backed Juncos, and its boon companions, the Slender-billed Nuthatches. About the middle of June the young leave their nests, and soon after make a partial migration downward towards the lower border of the pine belt, in common with many other birds that breed at high levels.

Nesting.—I can find no references to the nesting habits or eggs of this subspecies, which probably do not differ materially from those of the Chihuahua woodpecker, except that J. S. Ligon told Mrs. Florence M. Bailey (1928) that it nests “generally in small trees in canyon beds.”

Eggs.—The eggs of this subspecies are apparently similar to those of other hairy woodpeckers. They seem to be scarce in collections; I have been able to locate only two sets of eggs, one set of four and one set of three. These seven eggs show average measurements of 24.66 by 17.91 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 25.3 by 18.2, 24.6 by 18.6, 24.2 by 18.2, and 24.6 by 17.2 millimeters.

Food.—Mrs. Bailey (1928) quotes Maj. E. A. Goldman as follows:

One afternoon I found one pecking at a hole near the ground in the trunk of an oak. It worked for a second or two and then paused long enough to look in my direction, beginning work again immediately. This was repeated several times and it seemed disinclined to leave the spot, allowing me to approach to within ten feet, when, instead of flying off, it slid around to the opposite side of the trunk while I examined the place and found the hole inhabited by numerous small black beetles which were running excitedly about. I moved off a short distance and watched the Woodpecker return to the hole which seemed to be a rich find.

She goes on to say:

On Chloride Creek in May, 1916, when Mr. Ligon was standing by a half dead box elder containing a woodpecker nest, the mother came with her bill for half its length jammed full of wood ants for the squawking young inside the hole. One that Mr. Kellogg took at Silver City had recently eaten two woodboring larvae, six caterpillars, and at least ten moth pupae, besides other insects and mast.

DRYOBATES PUBESCENS PUBESCENS (Linnaeus)

SOUTHERN DOWNY WOODPECKER

HABITS

Because the Linnaean name Picus pubescens was based on Catesby’s smallest spotted woodpecker, of South Carolina, the southern bird becomes the type race of the species, and the above scientific name, which for many years was used for the more northern bird, is now restricted to the downy woodpeckers of the Lower Austral Zone of the South Atlantic and Gulf States, from North Carolina to eastern Texas. William Brewster (1897) has given us a full review of the changes that have taken place in the nomenclature of the downy woodpeckers of eastern North America, to which the reader is referred.

The southern downy woodpecker, D. p. pubescens, is smaller, from the more southern parts of its range decidedly smaller, than the more northern bird, D. p. medianus, intergrading with it where the two ranges meet; the under parts are more brownish, and the white markings of the wings and tail will average of less extent.

The haunts of this woodpecker are similar to those of its northern relative, due allowance being made for the difference in environment. It is a more sociable species than the hairy woodpecker and less of a woodland bird.

In Florida, according to Arthur H. Howell (1932), “it occurs alike in pine woods, hammocks, orchards, roadside hedges, and dooryards.”

Nesting.—Mr. Howell (1932) says that, in Florida, “the nest of the downy is usually dug in a decaying limb of a tree or occasionally in a fence post, and may be anywhere from 5 to 50 feet above the ground.” Harold H. Bailey (1925) says that “for the nesting site, they usually select a dead stub of some live tree, preferring a hard one to a soft or decayed wood. The cavity is drilled each year anew by the birds, the hole being about one and a quarter inches in diameter and eight to twelve inches deep, varying in height from twenty to sixty feet above ground.” John Helton, Jr., tells me of a nest he found on April 20, near Troy, Ala., that “was drilled in a rotten oak limb, which had fallen, been caught, and was suspended among the branches of a pine. It contained three small young and one infertile egg. The mother bird fed the young with great regularity every three minutes.” M. G. Vaiden, of Rosedale, Miss., writes to me of a nest 35 feet up in a dead snag of a pecan tree; the limb was four inches in diameter and the cavity only five inches deep. George Finlay Simmons (1925) says that, in Texas, it nests “10 to 20 feet from ground in small dead deciduous trees, or in old stumps or telegraph poles.”

Eggs.—The eggs are like those of the northern downy but slightly smaller. The measurements of 25 eggs average 19.43 by 15.24 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 20.8 by 14.9, 20.6 by 16.7, and 17.78 by 13.46 millimeters.

Behavior.—Writing of the habits of these woodpeckers in the sandhills of North Carolina, Milton P. Skinner (1928) says:

They are seen at times with Chickadees, red-cockaded woodpeckers, Brownheaded Nuthatches, Kinglets and Juncos. And these associations seem to be actual and usual, and not temporary and accidental ones as they are between most birds of different species. The downy woodpeckers are peaceable little fellows but other birds will impose on them. I have seen a yellow-bellied sapsucker and a mob of three or four English Sparrows near Pine Bluff chasing one about. But downy was a fast flier and outflew all his tormentors each time. Their flight is undulating and typical of the woodpecker family. These woodpeckers have one trait of the Brown Creepers—they prefer to work up a tree and fly down to the base of the next one.

Perhaps a downy woodpecker does not really work any harder or faster for its food than any other bird, but somehow it seems that it does. I found one once on an inclined limb of a catalpa near the Highland Pines Inn and watched it work up ten feet in thirteen minutes. During that time downy’s blows fell good and hard at the average of a hundred strokes each minute except for a dozen momentary stops when a big bird flew over, or the downy scratched its head. It was feeding on small white grubs which it secured at an average rate of four per minute. * * *

These woodpeckers have the habit in the Sandhills of digging holes in which to sleep. One found a suitable place in the end of a dead limb of a large gum standing in a flooded swamp near Mid Pines Club. This limb had been broken and left a stub sticking out about five feet long at right angles to the trunk of the gum and about forty feet above the ground. It was about five inches in diameter where the woodpecker began work on it. Work was started on the under side of the limb about nine inches from the outer end on February 11, 1927, and the bird dug at it for forty-five minutes to such good purpose that the hole would then admit all its bill and half its head. As it worked it clung head down under the limb. Then it left its work to go foraging but came back in thirty minutes to resume work. During the next three days this woodpecker must have worked steadily for it then had a hole into which it could completely disappear. But the hole was not large enough nor deep enough, and the bird was still at work, continually popping in and out (backward) of its hole; usually when it backed out it carried a bill full of chips and shavings that it threw over its shoulder. As it did so, it glanced once or twice to either side as if to assure itself that all was well. Then back into the hole for another period of steady hammering. Apparently this woodpecker worked thus from thirty minutes to an hour after each half hour’s foraging trip. Two more days of work completed the sleeping quarters in a snug cozy retreat. When finished, the hole was six inches deep, and the limb around it was a mere shell. The opening being beneath the limb, it was sheltered from storms, and from any water running into it.

DISTRIBUTION

Range.—North America; nonmigratory.

The range of the downy woodpecker is north to Alaska (Russian Mission, Tanana, and Fort Egbert); southwestern Mackenzie (Fort Simpson and Fort Providence); northern Alberta (Fort McMurray); central Saskatchewan (Big River and Prince Albert); southern Manitoba (Lake St. Martin, Shoal Lake, and Indian Bay); Ontario (Lac Seul, Gargantua, and Sudbury); Quebec (Lake Mistassini, Godbout, and Natashguan River); and Newfoundland (Nicholsville and probably St. Johns). The eastern limit of the range extends south along the Atlantic coast from this point to southern Florida (Miami, Royal Palm Hammock, and Flamingo). From this southeastern point the species is found westward along the Gulf coast to Mississippi (Biloxi) and Louisiana (New Orleans), thence in the interior to south-central Texas (Giddings and Pecos); southern New Mexico (Mayhill, Cloudcroft, and Silver City); Arizona (San Francisco Mountain and Fort Valley); and southern California (Escondido). The western limits extend nearly or quite to the Pacific coast north through California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia to Alaska (Sitka, Sitkalidak Island, Bethel, and Russian Mission).

The range as above outlined is for the entire species, which has been separated into six subspecies. The typical form, the southern downy woodpecker (D. p. pubescens), is found in the South Atlantic and Gulf States north to North Carolina and Oklahoma; the northern downy woodpecker (D. p. medianus) ranges north from Virginia, Tennessee, and Kansas (casually eastern Colorado) north to southern Alberta, Manitoba, Quebec, and Newfoundland; Nelson’s downy woodpecker (D. p. nelsoni) ranges southeast from northwestern Alaska to central Alberta and is found casually even farther east; Batchelder’s woodpecker (D. p. leucurus) is the Rocky Mountain form and is found from the Kenai Peninsula of Alaska south to New Mexico and Arizona, casually east to Nebraska and on the coast of British Columbia; Gairdner’s woodpecker (D. p. gairdneri) is found on the Pacific coast from British Columbia south to northern California; and the willow woodpecker (D. p. turati) is confined to California, being distributed rather generally over the State except in the desert areas and the northwestern part.

While the downy woodpecker is not migratory in the accepted sense of the term, and during the months of November and December has been recorded north to Mackenzie (Fort Simpson) and central Quebec (Lake Mistassini), it appears to have some local movements and seems given to a certain amount of wandering after the close of the breeding season. In some of the more northern areas it is commoner in winter than in summer, while in the mountainous regions of the West there is apparently a vertical movement in winter to the valley floors.

While the files of the Biological Survey contain the data for more than 4,600 of these birds that have been marked with numbered bands, many of which have been subsequently recovered, only one of these indicates a flight of any distance from the point of banding. This bird (83460), banded on February 2, 1925, at Elkader, Iowa, was found dead at Balsam Lake, Wis., on October 25, 1925. The distance between the two points is about 185 miles.

• Egg dates.—Alberta: 12 records, May 25 to June 14.
• California: 82 records, April 7 to June 9; 41 records, April 24 to May 13, indicating the height of the season.
• Colorado: 9 records, May 4 to June 30.
• Florida: 7 records, April 2 to May 14.
• Illinois: 16 records, April 3 to June 3; 8 records, May 12 to 20.
• New York: 12 records, May 10 to June 2.
• Washington: 8 records, May 1 to June 2.

DRYOBATES PUBESCENS GAIRDNERI (Audubon)

GAIRDNER’S WOODPECKER

HABITS

This subspecies of our well-known downy woodpecker is one of those well-marked dark-colored races that occur in the humid Northwest coast region, ranging in the Transition Zone from southern British Columbia to Mendocino County, Calif. It is practically a small edition of the equally dark Harris’s woodpecker, which inhabits the same region. Its characters are so well marked that it was recognized and named by Audubon (1842). Ridgway (1914) describes it as “similar to D. p. turati, but color of under parts darker (often light brownish gray or drab), the white of back often tinged with brownish gray.”

D. E. Brown, in his notes from western Washington, says: “Gairdner’s woodpecker is next to the commonest woodpecker in western Washington, the northwestern flicker being the only one that outnumbers it. This, the smallest of the woodpeckers in this locality, is fond of old river beds, willow swamps, and the deciduous trees along streams. It is found here at all times of year but seems to be more in evidence in winter, probably because the leaves are off the trees where it is usually found.”

Nesting.—Mr. Brown states further that “it digs its nesting cavity usually in a dead willow stub of small size, but at times it excavates, with much labor, a cavity in a growing tree. Nests have been found as low as 3 feet from the ground, and they are seldom more than 30 feet up. Three to six eggs are laid, five being the usual number. The first week in May is the best time for fresh eggs. The incubating bird has a habit that, I think, saves its eggs many times; when the stub that contains the eggs is rapped, the sitting bird comes to the opening with its bill full of chips from the bottom of the nest; these are dropped outside, and the bird drops back into the nest, only to repeat this action when the rapping is repeated. I have seen this performance not once but many times, and I think it a regular occurrence when the eggs are well incubated.”

Dawson and Bowles (1909) write: “Gairdners place their nests at inconsiderable heights in deciduous trees, and those, if possible, among thick growths on moist ground. Both sexes assist in excavation, as in incubation. Partially decayed wood is selected and an opening made about an inch and a quarter in diameter. After driving straight in an inch or two, the passage turns down and widens two or three diameters. At a depth of a foot or so the crystal white eggs are deposited on a neat bed of fine chips. Incubation lasts twelve days and the young are hatched about the 1st of June.”

Eggs.—The eggs of Gairdner’s woodpecker resemble those of the northern downy (medianus) in every respect but average slightly smaller. The measurements of 34 eggs average 18.71 by 14.51 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 20.83 by 15.24, 20.32 by 16.0, 17.27 by 14.22, and 17.78 by 12.95 millimeters.

Food.—Johnson A. Neff (1928) had 68 stomachs available for study, mostly Gairdner’s woodpeckers from the Willamette Valley, Oreg., and states that—

the animal food items averaged 82.07 percent of the annual food, and vegetable matter, 17.93 percent. * * *

At Peyton, in August, the Gairdner Woodpeckers were observed working busily for several days removing the larvae, pupae, and adults of weevils from the stems of common mullen, Verbascum thapsus. * * *

During July, 1925, whole families of the Gairdner Woodpecker were observed in the huge cottonwoods which abound near the Willamette River, feeding on aphids and scale. They often numbered as high as ten birds in one tree, and worked from the lowest limb to the highest leaf. While paying some attention to the branches, their chief interest was in the clusters of leaves; they clambered out each small branch to the group of leaves at the tip, peered under each leaf intently, even swinging around sidewise and up-side down in their efforts. Through the binoculars it was easy to see them remove small objects and, later, stomach analysis showed that most of the objects were scale insects. * * *

These woodpeckers have yet to be observed doing any injury to a living tree; the writer has been unable to find any evidence of their doing so in this area. While they nested abundantly in the river-bottom lands in very close companionship with true sapsuckers, they were never seen to visit the flowing sap pits. * * *

Fruit was hardly touched by these birds; elderberry (Sambucus) and Madrona (Arbutus) were the only kinds found, averaging only 0.46 percent of the diet. * * *

The Gairdner, Willow, and Batchelder Woodpeckers in the orchard are worth their weight in gold to the fruit grower. They should be strictly protected, and every known means of attraction should be used in the attempt to persuade them to remain about the ranches.

Winter.—Anderson and Grinnell (1903) say that, in the Siskiyou Mountains, Calif., “the Gairdner woodpecker is usually to be found in company with the flocks of mountain chickadees which frequent the black oak groves all winter. The oaks are their favorite working places, but they are also to be seen among the pines and spruces. Six specimens brought home are all quite near gairdneri. The smokiness of the lower surface is not so intense as in skins from western Oregon, but the size, especially of the feet, is decidedly that of the northwest coast form.”

DRYOBATES PUBESCENS LEUCURUS (Hartlaub)

BATCHELDER’S WOODPECKER

HABITS

The downy woodpecker inhabiting the Rocky Mountains and adjacent regions from southern Alaska to Arizona and New Mexico is described by Ridgway (1914) as “similar in large size and whiteness of under parts to D. p. nelsoni, but with less of white on wing-coverts, sometimes with none, the spots, when present, only on terminal or (usually) subterminal portion, and on only a few of the covert features.” It also differs from it in a “tendency to reduction or absence of bars on lateral rectrices.”

The common name of this woodpecker is in honor of Charles F. Batchelder, who first (1889) called the attention of American ornithologists to the characters of this race under the name D. p. oreoecus. Batchelder’s name was used in the 1895 A. O. U. Check-List, but it was later found to be antedated by Dryobates homorus of Cabanis and Heine, which was adopted in the 1910 Check-List. This was found to be still further antedated by the name Picus leucurus, given to the downy woodpecker of the Rocky Mountains by Hartlaub in 1852. It seems rather strange that this race remained so long unrecognized in this country. This may be due to the fact that this woodpecker seems to be a comparatively rare bird throughout most of its range.

The Weydemeyers (1928) say of its occurrence in northwestern Montana:

A rather rare permanent resident, irregular in winter. Occurs throughout the county, but is rare at high elevations. It frequents mixed broad-leaf and conifer woods along the lower streams, where it undoubtedly breeds in preference to other locations. During winter it is often seen about farmsteads and pastures, and in bordering woods of Douglas fir, yellow pine, and larch. In the Canadian zone it occurs sparingly in lodgepole pine and alpine fir (Abies lasiocarpa) woods, usually along streams.

In the western half of the county, an observer may consider himself fortunate to see an individual of this species twice a week. In the eastern portion, during July and August, along Transition zone streams, one or two birds may be seen nearly every day.

We have obtained no definite nesting dates for this species, although it evidently breeds in suitable locations. On July 22, 1923, a brood of young on the wing was seen near Fortine in woods of spruce and aspen, in the Transition zone, at 2,960 feet altitude.

Major Bendire (1895) writes:

Dr. Edgar A. Mearns, United States Army, reports it breeding sparingly throughout the Pinus ponderosa belt, ascending into the Spruce zone, on the San Francisco cone, and considers it the rarest of the woodpeckers found in Arizona. Mr. Denis Gale took a nest and eggs of this subspecies in Boulder County, Colorado, on June 12, 1889. The excavation was found in a half-dead aspen, 30 feet from the ground, and presumably well up in the mountains, as Mr. William G. Smith informs me that it is only a winter visitor in the lower valleys, and is never seen there during warm weather. I found it rare near Fort Custer, Montana, and only obtained a single male specimen, on November 23, 1884, among the willows and cottonwoods on the Little Horn River. Dr. James C. Merrill, United States Army, met with it breeding at Fort Shaw, Mont., early in June, 1879, and tells me that five or six eggs are generally laid to a set, and that the nesting habits are just like those of the downy woodpecker.

Lee R. Dice (1918) says that, in southeastern Washington, it is “numerous throughout the year in the timber along the Touchet River near Prescott.

“* * * On June 11, 1908, a nest containing young was found four feet from the ground in an apple tree near Prescott. The female was seen gathering large, red aphids from nearby golden-rod. She would gather all her mouth could hold and until the aphids stuck out like a fringe all around the edges of the bill. Then she flew in a direct line toward the nest. This female was also seen to gather aphids from apple trees.”

A set of four eggs in the Thayer collection was taken near Fort Shaw, Mont., on June 8, 1879; the nesting cavity was 12 feet from the ground in a dead tree and was excavated to a depth of 10 inches. The eggs are characteristic of the species, short-ovate in shape, dull white in color, and only slightly glossy.

The measurements of 28 eggs average 19.86 by 15.29 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 23.37 by 16.00, 19.0 by 14.8, and 18.4 by 14.4 millimeters.

DRYOBATES PUBESCENS MEDIANUS (Swainson)

NORTHERN DOWNY WOODPECKER

Plates [7], [8]

HABITS
Contributed by Winsor Marrett Tyler

The downy woodpecker, including six geographical forms, inhabits nearly the whole of the wooded parts of North America. It is absent or rare on the arid deserts and less common in the densely forested regions than some of the larger woodpeckers; its favorite country is the open woodland that covers a large part of the United States.

When civilized man invaded their territory, the downy woodpeckers of the Atlantic coast—the northern and southern races—did not retreat before his advance but accepted as a home the orchards and shade trees with which man replaced the forest. At the present time it builds its nest sometimes within sight from our windows and often in the parks of our large cities. It is one of the best known of our permanent residents.

The ornithologists of a century ago show unanimity in their characterization of the bird. Audubon (1842) remarks that it “is perhaps not surpassed by any of its tribe in hardiness, industry, or vivacity”; Wilson (1832) says that “the principal characteristics of this little bird are diligence, familiarity, perseverance” and speaks of a pair of the birds working at their nest “with the most indefatigable diligence”; and Nuttall (1832) characteristically shares Wilson’s opinion even to the extent of employing his exact words, “indefatigable diligence,” in his own account of the building of the nest. Nearly a hundred years later Forbush (1927), when near the end of his long life, put the seal of his approval upon this sentiment, expressed long ago, by summarizing the downy as a “model of patient industry and perseverance.”

Backed by these authorities we may regard the downy woodpecker as a bird with a stable and well-balanced nature, a bird which, unconcerned by the rush and traffic “of these most brisk and giddy-paced times,” still perseveres in its “indefatigable diligence.”

Spring and courtship.—As spring advances, the downy woodpecker seems to wake up; it attracts our notice by its more frequent notes and increased activity. During the cold months of the year the bird has been comparatively silent, although even in the depth of winter we may occasionally hear its single chip and even the long whinny, but in April, for so sedate a bird, it becomes a lively personality; it moves about quickly—sometimes with lightninglike agility—and takes a voluble interest in the members of its own species.

Francis H. Allen, in his notes, gives the two following graphic accounts of the initial stage of the bird’s courtship: “April 10, 1904. West Roxbury, Mass. I found two downy woodpeckers courting—at least, I suppose that was what they were up to. They acted like mating flickers, chasing each other about from tree to tree, keeping almost constantly on the move and only pausing now and then to execute a sort of dance, spreading their wings and tails. From time to time I heard from them a long call resembling the flicker’s whick, whick whick whick, etc., but higher pitched than the flicker’s and, of course, not so loud. Less often I heard another note—a softer, slighter, more hurried call, similar in quality. I did not make out whether, these two calls were made by different sexes, nor did I positively make out that the birds were a pair, they kept in such constant motion. At least once one lit crosswise of a twig. At last one flew off, and then the familiar and characteristic long call of a downy sounded from another direction, and the remaining bird flew over to the third bird, which was clinging to the trunk of an elm. Then these two stayed in each other’s company but did not conduct so elaborate a dance as the first couple.

“All this time a fourth bird had been drumming on a tree not far away. I went up to the place and timed the drum calls, finding each roll to last about two seconds. I could not count the taps, but thought they numbered eight or ten to each roll. While I watched this bird, another downy came along, sounding the flickerlike call, but rather faintly, and the drummer flew to join her. They flew off together. I believe it is only the male that drums, and I think it probable that the bird that answered the drummer was the one that had taken part in the dance before described, for that bird when she left her partner had flown off in this direction.

“April 8, 1917. West Roxbury. Watched a pair courting this morning for several minutes. Both sexes had a curious ‘weaving’ action, moving the head and whole body from side to side on the tip of the tail as a pivot with the neck stretched out and bill pointed on a line with the body, and the whole body elongated. They did this both when clinging to the side of a trunk and when on a horizontal or slanting branch. They were silent but very active, flitting one after the other from branch to branch and tree to tree, but making only short flights. The waving, or ‘weaving,’ motion of the head was rather rapid, perhaps two waves, that is from left to right and back again, in about a second—but this is stated from general impressions and memory only. These birds did not spread the wings and tail as did the courting pair observed on April 10, 1904, and, as stated, they uttered no note.”

My notes refer to a bit of courtship observed during the actual breeding season, May 11, 1911, in a wooded swamp in Lexington, Mass., where the species used to nest every year. The female bird was perched motionless along a horizontal limb of a tree, and the male was poised in the air just behind and a little above her. He was hovering. His wings were more than half spread, I should say, and waving slowly up and down, a maneuver which displayed finely the rows of white spots on the flight feathers and coverts.

William Brewster (1936), in his Concord journal under date of May 5,1905, notes another form of courtship. He says: “At 8 A. M. saw a pair of Downy Woodpeckers in young oaks behind Ball’s Hill, behaving very strangely. They kept flying from tree to tree, flapping their wings slowly and feebly like butterflies, sometimes moving on a level plane, sometimes in long loops, occasionally sailing from tree to tree in a long deep loop. Their wings had a strange fin-like appearance due, probably, to the way they were held or flexed. They both uttered a low, harsh, chattering cry, almost incessantly. No doubt this was a love performance, but they were male and female and both ‘showed off’ in the same way.”

Lewis O. Shelley (1932), who, at East Westmoreland, N. H., has had an extensive experience with banded birds throughout the year, describes the courtship thus:

Courtship activities begin rather early with the male’s tattooing commencing in the warm days of March. I believe the most active mating display is given by a new male that desires a mate, not by a male mated the previous year whose mate is still living. The latter male seems to give a protective display to its rival, seemingly just enough to hold his mate’s trust.

In the spring of 1931, father and son * * * fought for and sought the favor of the young female * * * the son finally winning after days of courtship in our yard and vicinity. * * * Courting lasted for upwards of two weeks, or perhaps longer, before the female made her choice. Of the two rivals the son finally was accepted, the older male shortly disappearing. * * * The courtship display of these three birds was the same as I have observed with other mating Downy Woodpeckers elsewhere in past seasons. At my station the mating activities began when the birds first met and was continued more or less regularly thereafter. The female is usually rather quiet, sometimes giving a week, week, week, week, or again a squeaking note. The males give forth a loud wick, wick, wick, wick, wick, wick, sometimes with a rolling k-k-k-k-k at the end. Very little drumming on resonant objects is done by the male, once a female is located, and in this case almost none was done except when one male was out of sight and hearing of the female and the other courting bird. To the casual observer, the chasing of the female by the male to a tree, and from tree to tree, in a seemingly idle manner (often, but not always, by both males) is in reality a part of the mating manoeuvres.

When it happens that both males are in pursuit, the activities take on an added impetus. I have a number of times seen one male dash headlong across a fifty-yard opening to where the other two birds were, loudly uttering his cry, and, when alighting, dash at his adversary, the female squeaking intermittently, and swinging her body from side to side. The display also consists of spread wings nervously fluttered; raising and lowering of the scarlet patch; mad dashes from one tree to another at the fleeing female, who dodges to the opposite side of the tree as the pursuing bird alights; loud calls at intervals when he stops in his mad hopping up the limbs and smaller branches. This activity may last from five to thirty minutes, from the large elm in our yard, where the birds feed, to a larger area either south or east of the house. When two birds are alone together, it is common to find them perching near together and motionless for considerable periods of time, but let the second male appear and the first male will drive the female from the tree and the round is begun again. When two males come face to face in a headlong rush, wings spread, crest raised, and beak open in a challenging attitude, it is mostly sham, for they soon quiet down unless one advances up the tree toward the female clinging immovable above.

There is a period when the male is very active in his rushing of the female—I suppose to make sure of his desire, a mate—but this phase of courtship plays no part in the act of copulation, which I have seen enacted early in the morning, a quiet, matter-of-fact performance.

The first and last paragraphs of this quotation are taken from Mr. Shelley’s manuscript notes.

Nesting.—The downy woodpecker nests in a cavity that the birds themselves drill in a branch or stub 8 feet (rarely less) to 50 feet (rarely more) above the ground, generally in dead or dying wood, sometimes in a solid branch. The entrance, one and a quarter inches in diameter, is just large enough to admit the bird’s body, and is perfectly circular unless some bits of soft wood chip off. The cavity is roughly gourd-shaped, turning downward and widening soon after penetrating the wood and extends to a depth varying normally from eight to twelve inches. Generally a few chips are left in the bottom of the cavity.

Lewis O. Shelley says (MS.) that according to his experience “the female selects the nest site on her winter, or year-round, territory.” He speaks of a female that in the fall “partly dug out a cavity, supposedly for her winter quarters, but the following summer I found a brood of young of this same bird occupying the nest.”

Writers are almost unanimously of the opinion that both birds of the pair excavate the nest, but Shelley (MS.) states: “Of a number of nests observed, I have never known the male downy to assist in excavating. He often comes near when the female is working, but this seems to be an understood signal for her to cease work and go off in his company.”

A. Dawes DuBois, in a letter to Mr. Bent, describes the behavior of a pair working jointly on a nest in Ithaca, N. Y., about 15 feet up in an old stub. He says: “These birds were working the lower depths. The partners worked alternately. First the female lighted on the stub and disappeared within the cavity. Immediately she thrust out her head, and, with a quick shake, disposed of a billful of chips. She repeated this a number of times. She was throwing out the loose chips from the bottom of the cavity. Soon she began to chisel, remaining inside where we could not see her. After she had been working for five or six minutes, her mate flew to the stub and uttered a chirp, whereupon the female came out and flew away.

“The male went in to continue the work by a somewhat different method. He was never entirely lost to view—his tail was always visible—and he backed out of the hole to dispose of the chips. He ruffled his feathers considerably in squirming out backward, as his body was a snug fit in the entrance hole. He threw out a quantity of loose chips in this manner and then began chiseling, his tail meanwhile protruding from the doorway. He worked for 22 minutes; then his mate came back.

“She went inside and came out with her mouth quite full of chips; but instead of tossing the chips to the ground, she flew off with them to another tree. She stayed away for several minutes, then returned and went to work in her accustomed way, staying within the cavity, and thrusting only her head outside. When she had worked about 15 minutes the male came again to the entrance. She put her head out of the doorway; they rubbed their bills together, and chirped a few remarks. The female then flew away and the male took up the task again.”

Audubon (1842) says: “About the middle of April it begins to form its nest, shewing little care as to the kind of tree it selects for the purpose, although it generally chooses a sound one, sometimes, however, taking one that is partially decayed. The pair work together for several days before the hole is completed, sometimes perhaps a whole week, as they dig it to a depth of a foot or sixteen inches. The direction is sometimes perpendicularly downwards from the commencement, sometimes transverse to the tree for four or five inches, and then longitudinal. The hole is rendered smooth and conveniently large throughout, the entrance being perfectly round, and just large enough to admit one bird at a time.”

A. Dawes DuBois (MS.) writes that the male bird of a pair was caught in a nest 6 feet from the ground, evidently incubating the six eggs well advanced in development. This observation is in accord with the general belief that the male takes his share in incubation.

Mrs. Alice Hall Walter (1912) states that “in the North, only one brood is raised during a season; but it is not uncommon in the South for one brood to be raised in May and a second in August.”

Eggs.—[Author’s note: The northern downy woodpecker lays ordinarily four or five eggs, though sets of three or six are not rare, and as many as seven or even eight eggs have been found in a nest. The eggs are pure white, either dull white or more or less glossy, and they vary in shape from ovate to rounded-ovate. The measurements of 55 eggs average 19.35 by 15.05 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 22.35 by 16.26, 17.78 by 14.73, and 18.80 by 13.97 millimeters.]

Young.—The incubation period of the downy woodpecker is 12 days, according to Frank L. Burns (1915) and Dr. Arthur A. Allen (1928).

Whether in their earliest days the young birds, hidden in the depths of their dark chamber, are fed by regurgitation has not been determined, but very soon after they leave the egg food is brought directly to them. Dr. Allen (MS.) says: “Certainly by the time the young are four or five days old entire insects are brought in the parents’ bills and given to the young; I have photographic proof of this.”

Craig S. Thoms (1927), in a study of the nesting habits in South Dakota, says: “On June 9 the young were beginning to come up to the door of their excavation to receive food. Presumably the largest and strongest sticks his head clear out. When he fed he subsided and the next came up, but not quite so far. He in his turn subsided and the parent entered to feed the weaker ones still farther down. * * *

“On June 12 the last of the young left the nest, which upon being measured was found to be 10 inches deep.”

A. Dawes DuBois (MS.) tells of the flight of the young birds from the nest: “The young chattered most of the time during the last two days of nest life. One at a time they looked out a great deal at the strange outer world. They left the nest on June 11. The last two, a male and a female, left during the afternoon, each after being fed at the entrance and seeing the parent fly away. The young male flew from the nest hole straight to a tree 60 feet away. His sister quickly followed, lighting on the trunk of the same tree and following her parent up the hole in the hitching manner of their kind as though she had been practicing this vertical locomotion all her life.”

Plumages.—[Author’s note: Young downy woodpeckers are hatched naked and blind, but the juvenal plumage is acquired before the young leave the nest. In this first plumage, the young male is much like the adult male, except that the red nuchal patch is lacking; the forehead is black, spotted with white, but the crown and occiput are more or less marked with various shades of red, pinkish, or yellowish, as well as spotted with white; the black portions of the plumage are duller than in the adult; the sides of the breast are streaked and the flanks obscurely spotted with dusky; the white areas, underparts, and white spots elsewhere, as well as the rectrices, are tinged with yellowish.

The young female is like the young male, except that there is no red on the head, and the crown is clear black, or black spotted with white. L. L. Snyder (1923) has shown that young males sometimes have only white markings on a black crown and that young females sometimes have reddish, pinkish, or yellowish markings on the crown.

The juvenal plumage is worn but a short time, for a complete molt, beginning in September or earlier, produces a first winter plumage, which is practically adult. Adults have a complete annual molt from July to September. Both adults and young show a tinge of yellowish in the white areas in fresh fall plumage, which gradually fades away.]

Food.—F. E. L. Beal (1911) in an examination of the contents of 723 stomachs of the downy woodpecker found that 76.05 percent was animal matter, the remaining 23.95 percent vegetable matter. The following quotations are from his exhaustive report.

Beetles taken collectively amount to 21.55 percent, and are the largest item of the food. Of these, a little less than 14 percent are wood-boring larvae. * * * They were found in 289 stomachs, or about 40 percent of all, and 10 contained no other food. This is only about half the amount found in the stomachs of the hairy woodpecker, and shows that the downy pecks wood much less than the hairy. These larvae are eaten at all times of the year, though the most are taken in the cooler months. * * * The economic value of the destruction of these larvae is very great.

Weevils amount to a little more than 3 percent, but appear to be a rather favorite food, as they were found in 107 stomachs. * * *

Ants are eaten by the downy to the extent of 21.36 percent of its diet, and are taken more regularly than any other element of the food. * * *

Caterpillars appear to be a very acceptable food for the downy woodpecker, as they constitute 16.50 percent of the yearly diet. * * *

Fruit was eaten to the extent of 5.85 percent of the whole food. Most of it is of useless wild varieties. * * *

The charge sometimes made that the downy injures trees by eating the inner bark is disproved. It eats cambium rarely and in small quantities.

Beal gives a list of 20 seeds and fruits found in the downy’s food.

Summarizing his findings, he says: “The foregoing discussion of the food of the downy woodpecker shows it to be one of our most useful species. The only complaint against the bird is on the score of disseminating the poisonous species of Rhus. However, it is fortunate that the bird can live on this food when it is difficult to procure anything else. The insect food selected by the downy is almost all of species economically harmful.”

Forbush (1927) lays stress on the usefulness of the downy to man; he says that it “searches out the pine weevil which kills the topmost shoot of the young white pine and so causes a crook in the trunk of the tree, unfitting it for the lumber market.”

Mrs. Alice Hall Walter (1912) shows how well the downy is equipped to secure its food. She says that the feet, two toes in front and two behind, “serve to clamp the bird to the tree.” She continues:

Additional support is furnished by the stiff, sharply pointed tail-feathers, that act as a brace when the bird delivers heavy blows with its beak. Effective as this tool is for the work of hammer, wedge, drill and pick-axe, it could not obtain the deeply hidden grubs known as “borers,” from their tortuous, tunneled grooves, without the aid of the long, slender, extensile tongue. In the case of the Hairy and Downy, as well as some others of the family, this remarkable tool is provided with barbs, converting it into a spear, which may be hurled one inch, two inches or even more, beyond the tip of the beak.

A. Dawes DuBois says in his notes: “I have seen a downy woodpecker industriously applying the percussion test to the dried stalks of the previous summer’s horse weeds, which grow to prodigious size in the creek bottoms near Springfield, Illinois. He went up each stalk, tapping it lightly, and frequently stopping to pierce the shell and extract a worm from the pith. I found that the weed stems he had visited were punctured and splintered in numerous places.”

The following note by Elliott R. Tibbets (1911) shows how agile the downy is on the wing. He was watching some birds at a feeding shelf. “I was told,” he says, “to throw a cracked nut into the air and see what followed—I did so, and, to my surprise, the Downy darted after it, not allowing it to touch the ground, and then returned to the evergreen, where he proceeded to pick the kernel from the hard shell.”

Henry D. Minot (1877) also mentions that they “catch insects on the wing.”

Behavior.—The downy woodpecker sits very still as it digs out a grub from under the bark of a tree, or from the wood under the bark, or as it dislodges a bit of bark in its hunt for a cocoon or a bundle of insects’ eggs. We hear the gentle taps of its bill, and when our eyes, led by the sound, catch sight of the bird, perched on a branch or the trunk of a tree, we understand why it has been called industrious. It is concentrated on its work; it works patiently, seriously, like a carpenter working earnestly with his chisel, spending a full minute, sometimes more, to secure a bit of food.

As it sits there quietly, working painstakingly at the bark, it gives the impression of a rather sedentary bird, deliberate and staid, but when it begins to move about—taking short flights among the branches—alighting on little swaying twigs and flitting off again—we see it in another mood. It is lively now; all deliberateness is gone. It hops upward over the branches with quick jerky hops, rearing back a little after each one; it may descend a little way by backward hitches; it winds about the smaller branches, peering at the right side, the left side, and around at the back; it flits to a twig no thicker than a pencil for the space of a single peck, and then is off with the speed of an arrow, weaving and undulating through a maze of branchlets, cutting the air audibly with its wings.

We can watch the downy woodpecker best in winter when the trees and shrubs are bare. But even in such an exposed situation as a leafless tree, we do not find it a conspicuous bird—one hop and it is hidden behind a branch, seeming almost to glide out of our sight. At the slightest alarm it disappears; it uses a branch as a shield—slipping behind it, safe from observation or attack.

The bird is at home also in shrubbery, moving easily among the smaller branches, hitching along their slender length, picking at the bark, and leaping from one branch to another with the aid of a flip of the wings. It sits crosswise on a perch scarcely bigger than a twig, leaning forward a little, bill outstretched, suggesting in position and outline a tiny kingfisher.

Here, at close range, on a level with our eyes, we realize how rapid the bird’s motions are. The beak strikes and draws back—the two movements a single flash. The head turns to one side, to the other side, bringing first one dark shining eye, then the other, to bear on the bark; we see the head in the two positions, although we get only a hint of the motion between.

Thus the day’s work goes on, until the downy, replete with the results of its industry, rests motionless for a while on a high, sunny branch, taking its ease.

The downy woodpecker, like most of its family, has an undulating flight when flying any considerable distance. The undulations are not deep, as in the plunging flight of a goldfinch; it gives rather the effect of a ship pitching slightly in a head sea. A few strokes carry the bird up to the crest of the wave—the wings clapping close to the sides of the body—then, at the crest, with the wings shut, the bird tilts slightly forward, and slides down into the next trough.

Besides employing its strong beak and the powerful muscles of its neck to secure food and dig out a cavity for its nest, the downy woodpecker makes use of them to beat a loud tattoo on the branch of a tree or some other resonant object. This habit is oftenest noticed in spring, when it appears to form a part of courtship or a prelude to it, but Lewis O. Shelley says in his notes that “on February 3, 1934, a male downy commenced its drumming on a dead elm branch near the house. A few hours earlier the temperature had been 5° below zero. On the 6th, 8th, and 9th he was tattooing at the usual hour, about 8 a. m. On the 8th the temperature registered zero, and on the 9th 18° below zero!”

Dr. Charles W. Townsend, in his Ipswich manuscript notes, under date of March 16, 1930, speaks of “a male bird hammering a rat-at-at-too on the apex of a telephone pole for three seconds. He then paused, hunching up a little and looking about for from five to twelve seconds, before resuming the hammering. He made a small round dent in the pole, but there were no chips.”

A. Dawes DuBois tells in his notes the following anecdote: “One April day I watched this avian drummer as he entertained himself by beating on the wooden insulator-pins of an unused cross-arm on a telegraph pole. From each pin he rang out a different tone—loud, clear, and high-pitched. It was evident that this pleased him, for he hopped from one pin to another to repeat the variations.”

I have found in the books no mention of drumming by the female downy, but at the end of the extract from William Brewster’s notes, quoted under “Courtship,” in which he describes a mutual display by a pair of birds, he adds: “Both sexes drum, also.”

William Brewster (1876b) points out the difference between the tattoo of the downy woodpecker and that of the hairy woodpecker and the yellow-bellied sapsucker. He says: “P. pubescens has a long unbroken roll, P. villosus a shorter and louder one with a greater interval between each stroke: while S. varius commencing with a short roll ends very emphatically with five or six distinct disconnected taps.”

R. Owen Merriam (1920) gives, from Hamilton, Canada, an instance of “snow bathing.” He says:

This morning a female Downy Woodpecker that I was watching flew to a horizontal branch and proceeded vigorously to bathe in the loose snow lying there. Like a Robin in a puddle, Mrs. Downy ducked her head, ruffled her feathers, and fluttered her wings, throwing some of the snow over her back and scattering the rest to the winds. As all the snow fell off one part of the branch, she moved along to another, until she had cleared a place about two feet long. Two forks held more snow than the straight limb, and apparently Mrs. Downy enjoyed herself immensely when she came to them.

Dr. Arthur A. Allen (1928) in his admirable “Downy Woodpecker’s Story,” published in the School Department of Bird-Lore, says, letting the bird tell its own story: “When cold weather sets in, * * * I begin drilling roosting-holes where I can spend the nights. I usually have to drill quite a number for they seem to be quite popular with other birds like the Chickadees and Nuthatches, and sometimes when I get ready to retire I find my hole occupied by a flying squirrel or a whole family of deer mice, and it is easier to drill a new hole than to drive them out. One winter I got tired of drilling holes and every night retired to a bird-house and perched on an old Wren’s nest that was in it.”

Many ornithologists, even as long ago as the time of Wilson and Nuttall, have believed that the rows of small holes, such as we commonly see in the bark of our orchard trees, are drilled by the downy woodpecker. These little holes, about three-eighths of an inch across, circular when old, but oval when fresh, are arranged in fairly regular rows parallel to the ground, and sometimes in tiers, when they have the appearance of a waffle. In settled regions they are found oftenest in the trunks and the larger branches of trees belonging to the rose family—most commonly of all in apple trees. The holes may be within 3 feet of the ground or as high as 20 feet or more above it, depending on the height of the tree. Oftentimes they are very close together; I have counted as many as six of them in the space of an inch and a half. The question has arisen whether the downy woodpecker ever makes these holes.

We know now, what the older ornithologists did not know, that it is a regular habit of the yellow-bellied sapsucker to drill such holes, but there are plenty of statements in the ornithological literature today ascribing the work to the downy woodpecker as well.

Dr. Charles W. Townsend (1932) gives an able summary of the literature on this question and, after carefully weighing the evidence, comes “to the conclusion that these well known and characteristic circles of holes are made by true sapsuckers and not by downy or hairy woodpeckers.”

He throws a good deal of doubt on some seemingly definite observations from correspondents quoted by Forbush in his “Birds of Massachusetts,” when he says that “many leave one in considerable uncertainty as to whether the correspondents actually saw the downy woodpecker making the rings of holes, or merely tapping in the same region, or drinking the sap, or eating cambium from holes whose origin was not ascertained. It may be that some of the correspondents were unable to distinguish the true species of woodpecker.”

Dr. Townsend cites several observations, two of which are quoted below. If the first of these had not been correctly interpreted, and if the other had not been seen in its entirety, they might have led to error. He says:

There is one observation, however, which should be quoted here, as it is of considerable interest in this discussion, an observation made by a capable observer with great care. Forbush says, loc. cit., vol. II, p. 268: “The first trustworthy evidence, however, that I obtained regarding the tapping of trees for sap by the Downy Woodpecker was in 1899, when my assistant, the late Charles E. Bailey, on April 6 watched one for several hours. His report reads: ‘At 12:30 I found a Downy Woodpecker, and watched him till 2:45; he took three larvae from a maple stub, just under the bark. He next tapped two small swamp maples, four and six feet from the ground, and spent most of the time taking sap. He tapped the tree by picking it a few times very lightly; it looked like a slight cut, slanting a little. The bird would sit and peck the sap out of the lower part of the cut. The cut was so small the sap did not collect very fast. The bird would go and sit for a long time in a large tree and not move, then it would come back and take more sap. It did this three times while I was watching it. It did not care to take any food but the sap.’ * * * Mr. Bailey cut off and brought me the limb, the bark of which was perforated by the bird. * * * The perforations passed through the bark to the wood, but did not enter it and they do not in the least resemble in shape those made by the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker.” Here is just what we should expect in a woodpecker not specialized as a sapsucker. * * *

The next record is of considerable significance in this discussion, and had I seen only the latter half of the drama, my conclusions might have been different. In the Wenham swamp on May 11, 1906, my notes state that Glover M. Allen and I found a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker drilling holes in a white pine. His movements were slow and he paid little attention to us standing below him at the foot of the tree. When he departed, a female Downy Woodpecker visited the holes.

Speaking of his own observations, Dr. Townsend says: “I may state that, although I have long watched Downy Woodpeckers gleaning insects on and in the bark and wood of trees at all seasons of the year, I have never seen them dig circles of holes in the bark. * * * I have never found fresh rings of holes except during the time of the sapsucker migrations.”

Voice.—The downy woodpecker is by no means a noisy bird; compared to the red-headed woodpecker, with its loud rattling calls, or to the shouting, boisterous flicker, it is quiet and demure. Nevertheless, we cannot be for long near one of these little birds, hidden high among leafy branches, before we learn of its presence. Within a few minutes, long before we catch sight of it, we are almost certain to hear its voice.

Its call note is a single abrupt syllable, like tchick. Although this note is of sufficient volume to carry a considerable distance, it is not a loud note even when heard at short range. As in the case of many bird notes, it is recognizable from the voice of any other bird hereabouts once we have become familiar with it, yet it is not easy to say how it differs from numerous other calls that might be suggested by the same letters. I believe one characteristic of the note that helps us distinguish it is its shortness—it is over almost as soon as begun, like a dot in the telegraph code. But in spite of being sharp, it is a modest little sound; it does not ring through the woods like the wild call of the hairy woodpecker.

Another note is a long whinny made up of a dozen or more tchicks. These increase in rapidity soon after the beginning of the series, and the pitch drops rather sharply. Near the close, the volume diminishes, and the whinny ends with a “dying fall.”

Elizabeth Sampson (1934) brings this note very clearly to our mind when she speaks of it as “a handful of his staccato notes * * * flung out in a rapid run, gaining speed as they came, till they almost tumbled over each other at the end.”

This whinny is also given, although not often, without any fall in pitch.

The downy woodpecker has other notes in its vocabulary, some of which are described under courtship, but, compared to the two noted above, they are rarely heard. It may be that some of these notes are only modifications of the call note, uttered with a slightly changed inflection. One, a single short note, has a distinct vocal quality.

Of the young birds in the nest, Dr. Arthur A. Allen (1928) says that they “keep up an incessant chippering, especially when they get the least bit hungry, and at times they sound almost like a bee-hive, from the ground.”

After the young birds have left the nest, I have often heard them give a series of tchicks similar to the whinny of the adults, but in a weaker voice and all on the same pitch. However, this note evidently varies, for Francis H. Allen says in his notes that the young have also a rattle resembling the kingfisher rattle of D. villosus, but fainter and falling in pitch like the similar note of the adult.

Field marks.—The downy, the smallest of our woodpeckers, may be separated at once from any other woodpecker, except the hairy, by the broad white stripe down the back.

The hairy is half again as large as the downy, but in situations where comparative size counts little, the downy may be recognized by its short bill—no longer than its head. The hairy’s bill is longer even in proportion to the size of the bird.

Enemies.—Lewis O. Shelley, who as a bird bander has handled many downy woodpeckers, says in his notes: “I find this species practically free from parasites, but I have found among the feathers the two bird flies, Ornithoica confluenta and Ornithomyia anchineuria.”

Alexander Wilson (1832) shows that the house wren, although not an open enemy of the downy, causes it a good deal of annoyance by stealing its nest sometimes. He says:

The house wren, who also builds in the hollow of a tree, but who is neither furnished with the necessary tools nor strength for excavating such an apartment for himself, allows the woodpeckers to go on, till he thinks it will answer his purpose, then attacks them with violence, and generally succeeds in driving them off. I saw some weeks ago a striking example of this, where the woodpeckers we are now describing, after commencing in a cherry-tree within a few yards of the house, and having made considerable progress, were turned out by the wren; the former began again on a pear-tree in the garden, fifteen or twenty yards off, whence, after digging out a most complete apartment, and one egg being laid, they were once more assaulted by the same impertinent intruder, and finally forced to abandon the place.

Maurice Thompson (1885) describes thus the bird’s defense against the attack of a goshawk:

I once saw a goshawk pursuing a downy woodpecker, when the latter darted through a tuft of foliage and flattened itself close upon the body of a thick oak bough, where it remained as motionless as the bark itself. The hawk alighted on the same bough within two feet of its intended victim, and remained sitting there for some minutes, evidently looking in vain for it, with nothing but thin air between monster and morsel. The woodpecker was stretched longitudinally on the bough, its tail and beak close to the bark, its black and white speckled feathers looking like a continuation of the wrinkles and lichen.

More commonly, when attacked by a hawk, the downy dodges behind a branch and, if the hawk catch sight of it again, either winds round the branch or dives behind another one. By this adroit defense the downy has a fair chance of eluding the hawk’s attack.

Fall and winter.—We see little change in the behavior of the downy woodpecker at the approach of autumn, at the time when many of the migratory birds are beginning to show a daily increasing restlessness, seeming on tiptoe to start on their long journey, moving about actively in their new feathers, and breaking out sometimes with a phrase of postnuptial song. In the role of permanent resident, the downy remains calm in the midst of the bustle of travel; it may join the hurrying groups for a time, or become surrounded by them, but it does not catch the contagion of departure, and soon drops behind to continue its local round.

The downy is not forced to seek the sun and warmth and the inexhaustible food of the Tropics, for the woodlands of New England and southeastern Canada are stored with food that, with a roosting hole, enables the bird to withstand the severest winter. But this food is limited; the insects that have been multiplying all summer, thus adding continually to the woodpeckers’ supply of food, stop multiplying when the frosts come, and will add no more until spring.

The downy is not a bird that ranges widely in search of food; moreover, for protection against the weather it is held to the vicinity of its roosting hole. Therefore each bird, in order to be sure of sufficient food for itself during the cold months, must maintain dominion over a territory large enough to support it through the winter.

Thus it comes about that in autumn the downy does perforce change its habits, or rather its attitude toward other birds of its species. The families disperse, and until the next breeding season each individual becomes a solitary bird, living in a restricted region, which it defends against trespass, resenting and repelling the approach of any other downy woodpecker.

This reversal of attitude or character—the change from a member of a family to an anchorite in fall, and back again in spring—takes place gradually, we may suppose, and not exactly at the same time in every bird. Hence one bird meeting another in autumn, while the change is in progress, may underestimate the degree to which it has drawn away from its fellows, or, in the spring, may overestimate the amount of cordiality that has returned to the wintering anchorite. This lack of understanding may give rise to behavior difficult or impossible for us to interpret.

Sometimes the relationship between two downies is clear enough, as when, on September 20, 1910, I saw a male fly repeatedly at a female in a menacing way and drive her off; and when on November 3, 1935, I saw a female bird fly toward a male, which was perched near a hole in an electric-light pole, from which he did not retire, as a perched bird commonly does when approached by a bird on the wing, but held his ground while she flew away; and when Lewis O. Shelley (MS.) tells of a female bird “rushing with antagonistic attitude at her two daughters” and also driving off her granddaughters whenever they invaded her winter territory in autumn, all these birds being identified by bands.

There are cases, however, in which the relationship between the birds is very puzzling. In the following scene, from my notes, there is a hint of hostility or remonstrance, but a suggestion of courtship also—out of place, it seems, in autumn between two female birds. “October 15, 1935. Two birds are in a large, bare maple tree; one is noticeably larger than the other, but neither one has a red occipital patch. They keep near each other, one following the other by short, quick flights. They perch perfectly motionless for a moment a foot or two apart; then both together sway their heads, swinging them quickly down and up to one side, down and up to the other side. The swing is very rapid, like the wink of an eye. They flit their wings upward and outward, also with the speed of a wink, over and over—all this without a sound. They fly behind a branch sometimes but keep mostly in sight of each other, and, although neither attacks, each seems wary of attack and dodges away when approached. They sometimes alight on very slender branches, and once a bird goes to the ground where it stands with its head held high up. They move very actively and lightly, with never the slightest blundering, flitting silently and easily from branch to branch.”

The following astonishing story, taken from William Brewster’s Concord journal (1937), tells of a case in which antagonism of unknown cause leads to the killing with brutal violence of a female downy by a male:

March 20, 1911. We were in the dining-room, consulting about the day’s work, when we heard the tchick note of the Downy Woodpecker repeated almost incessantly and very rapidly just outside. For a moment or more we paid no attention to it. But something unusual in its quality and its insistence soon led me to look out and this was what I saw:

On the snow, among the outermost stems of the lilacs on one side of the dense thicket that they form was a female Downy with extended and quivering wings. About her hopped or rather danced a handsome male, showing the red on his occiput very conspicuously. He kept striking at her head with his bill and occasionally he held on for a few seconds, when the two birds fluttered about together and perhaps rolled over once or twice, closely united. At first I thought it an amatory encounter and I am still almost certain that the male attempted to secure sexual contact with the female once or twice. But if so it could not have been his primary or at least sole object. For he continued to peck her head even when she was lying almost motionless on the snow. For a time she seemed to be trying to escape and for fully two minutes her cries were piteous and incessant. At length he left her and flew up into an elm where he clung for a moment or two, making what seemed to me a very unusual display of the red on his occiput. Then of a sudden he swooped down on the female, who had meanwhile been cowering in the middle of a cluster of lilac stems, on the snow. Dragging her forth from this slight shelter into an open space, he attacked her again, this time with obvious fury, fairly raining a shower of blows on the back of her head. She seemed too weak to make any further attempt to escape and her cries, although continued, were so faint that we could only just hear them. I now realized for the first time that he was inspired by the lust of killing and not by sexual ardor. It was very hard to refrain from rushing out and driving him away but I restrained the impulse, not being willing to interrupt a tragedy of such extraordinary, if repulsive, interest. It would have made no difference anyway, for, this final onslaught lasted only a very few seconds. During its continuance the male Downy seemed literally beside himself with rage. No Butcher Bird that I have ever watched has shown, while dealing with a Mouse or Sparrow, more murderous energy. After finishing the foul deed he left the female lying perfectly motionless and flew up again into the elm. We now went out and picked up the female. She was still living but unable to move. The [back] of her head was soaked in blood and her bare skull showed in places. She died a little later. I skinned her and preserved her skull which I have attached to the skin. It is punctured in 10 or 12 places. The bird was in normal condition physically with healthy-looking ovary the ovules undeveloped. The only injuries were to the skull.

Doubtless a few downy woodpeckers move southward in autumn or early in winter, especially from the northern part of the bird’s range. Dr. Charles W. Townsend in his Ipswich notes (MS.) says that he sees “evident migrants not uncommonly in October and November.” But most of our birds spend the whole year round with us, and in autumn we may watch them as they make provision for winter. Even before the leaves are off the trees—in September here in New England—we may hear, day after day as we pass a certain tree, the tapping of a downy woodpecker where, invisible from the ground, high up on a branch, it is digging out a cavity, its roosting hole, in which it will sleep alone through the long winter nights, and into which it may retreat in the daytime whenever “the frost-wind blows.”

DRYOBATES PUBESCENS NELSONI Oberholser

NELSON’S DOWNY WOODPECKER

HABITS

This large race of the downy woodpecker inhabits the wooded regions of northern Alaska and northern Canada, intergrading with Dryobates pubescens medianus in southern Canada and possibly in northern New England.

Dr. H. C. Oberholser (1896a), in describing and naming it, characterizes it as “similar to Dryobates pubescens [=medianus], but averaging larger; the under parts pure white instead of brownish; the lower tail-coverts and outer tail-feathers averaging with much less of black markings; red nuchal band of male averaging somewhat wider.”

Swainson and Richardson (1831) say: “This diminutive but exceedingly industrious Woodpecker is a constant inhabitant of the fur-countries up to the fifty-eighth parallel. It seeks its food principally on the maple, elm, and ash, and, north of latitude 54°, where these trees terminate, on the aspen and birch. Its researches are made mostly, if not wholly, on live trees.”

Dr. E. W. Nelson (1887) writes:

Throughout the Territory [Alaska] where woodland or a growth of bushes and small trees occurs the present bird is certain to be found, and is a resident winter and summer. It has been taken along the entire course of the Yukon as well as at various points on the coast of Bering Sea, and thence south at Kadiak and Sitka. In autumn it is a rather common visitant to the coast of Norton Sound in spite of the lack of timber, and it was not uncommon to see it clinging to the sides of the houses, or to the flagstaff, and other similar supports; after resting awhile, and, perhaps, tapping a few times on the unproductive logs, they would leave for a more promising field. They were seen at times passing from one alder patch to another, on the hill-sides, and they follow the spruces and other trees to the shore of the sea.

While I was camping in spring, at the Yukon mouth, these birds were rather common in the dense bushes along this stream and its tributaries. Their holes were frequently found in the decaying stubs, although I did not find a nest containing eggs. This species appears to frequent deciduous thickets and trees by preference, as, in addition to the various times which I saw it in the interior in winter, while at the Yukon mouth, I always found it about locations where only deciduous trees and bushes were found, and its holes were always made in cottonwood or birch-stubs.

Judged from what little is known about them, the nesting, food, and other habits of Nelson’s downy woodpecker do not differ materially from those of its more southern relatives, except as influenced by its different environment. Living in the far north, where trees are small and scarce, it has to be content to excavate its nest in small trees or low stumps. There are very few eggs in collections; a set of five eggs in the Thayer collection was taken from a hole 4 feet from the ground in a rotten stump, near Fort Saskatchewan, Canada, on June 10, 1898. These eggs are like other eggs of the species, pure white, ovate in shape, and somewhat glossy. The measurements of 31 eggs average 19.54 by 15.43 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 21.9 by 16.1, 19.4 by 16.4, 17.5 by 15.0, and 18.65 by 14.28 millimeters.

DRYOBATES PUBESCENS TURATI (Malherbe)

WILLOW WOODPECKER

HABITS

The downy woodpeckers of California were for many years all called D. p. gairdneri, until Dr. Walter K. Fisher (1902) called attention to the smaller and lighter-colored race, which inhabits much of the coast region and nearly all the lowlands of southern California. For this race, he very properly revived Malherbe’s name, as given above, for this name was based on birds taken near Monterey. He gives as the characters of the willow woodpecker:

Smaller than Dryobates pubescens gairdneri, with smaller feet; under parts lighter; the elongated superciliary patch and rictal stripe extending over sides of neck, pure white, instead of smoky white of gairdneri; tertials always more or less spotted with white. * * *

Dryobates pubescens turati is a southern representative of gairdneri, which it resembles in the smoky under parts and restricted areas of white on the wings, and from which it differs in its smaller size, much smaller feet, and clearer white markings of head. The present form is near true pubescens of the Southern States, but differs from it in having much less white on the wings, the coverts and tertials of pubescens being conspicuously and often heavily marked with white. * * *

The willow woodpecker in a typical form breeds from Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties north in the coast ranges to San Francisco Bay, and along the west slope of the Sierra Nevada at least to Yuba County. Intergradation with gairdneri occurs over the coast region north of San Francisco Bay and in the mountains at the head of the Sacramento Valley.

Grinnell, Dixon, and Linsdale (1930) say of the haunts of the willow woodpecker in the Lassen Peak region: “Downy woodpeckers were seen most often close to streams and in orchards. Their forage places included the limbs or small trunks of willow, alder, cottonwood, sycamore, valley oak, blue oak, digger pine, and yellow pine trees.”

Nesting.—Major Bendire (1895) writes: “Mr. Charles A. Allen informs me that it breeds in the oaks and willows along the Sacramento River, Calif., but that it is not common. Its breeding sites seem to be confined to deciduous trees, preferably dead ones, or old stumps, and besides those already mentioned, sycamore and cottonwoods are occasionally used. Their nesting sites are rarely found at any great distance from the ground, usually ranging from 4 to 20 feet up and rarely higher.”

W. L. Dawson (1923) says: “Willow woodpeckers, in the wild, place their nests at considerable heights in deciduous trees, and those, if possible, among thick growths on moist ground. Both sexes assist in excavation, as in incubation. Partially decayed wood is selected, and an opening made about an inch and a quarter in diameter. After driving straight in for an inch or two, the passage turns down and widens two or three diameters. At the depth of a foot or so the crystal white eggs are deposited on a neat bed of fine chips. Incubation lasts twelve days, and the young are hatched some time in May.”

Eggs.—The willow woodpecker lays three to six eggs, more commonly four or five; it may occasionally lay seven, as some of the other western races have been known to do. The eggs are typical of the species. The measurements of 40 eggs average 18.74 by 15.20 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 22.3 by 15.7, 18.4 by 16.3, 17.3 by 14.5, and 18.0 by 14.4 millimeters.

Food.—Mr. Dawson (1923) writes:

It is as an orchardist that the Willow Woodpecker deserves the most careful consideration. Bird-lovers are, perhaps prone to superlatives in commending their friends, but it is safe to say that a more useful bird for his ounces than the downy woodpecker does not exist. He eats not only ants and the larvae of wood-boring beetles, but scale insects, plant lice, and the pupae of the detestable coddling moth. The evidence is clear that these incomparable tree experts, together with their friends, the nuthatches, the chickadees, and the creepers, would insure the health of our orchards if they were numerous enough. It becomes of the highest importance, then, to study their welfare in turn. In the northern and more elevated valleys of the State, it may be worth while to offer them nuts or to hang out a bit of suet in winter. In the South no such precautions are necessary. A fundamental consideration, however, is the provision of suitable nesting sites. Experiment has shown that the downy’s forage range during the breeding season is not extensive. The clamoring young are fed by the product of nearby trees (fed, it may be, a thousand insects a day). Their services, therefore, must be secured in the orchard; and to this end the orchardist must consent to leave certain dead branches—a foot or so at the base of the larger ones will do—for a nesting site. Dead wood, of course, invites insects; but the most serious and frequent mistake which our California orchardists make is to trim out all the dead wood from the fruit trees. A pair of Willow Woodpeckers, or of Slender-billed Nuthatches, will clean out all the dangerous pests from a dead tree, and sixteen live ones to boot.

Grinnell and Storer (1924) made some studies of the feeding habits of the willow woodpecker in the Yosemite region, of which they say:

A pair of Willow Woodpeckers proved to be regular tenants of Curry’s apple orchard on the floor of the Yosemite Valley. They, or their ancestors, had evidently worked there for some years, with the result that most of the 150 trees in the orchard showed marks of their attention, and many of the trunks were fairly riddled with drillings somewhat like those of the sapsucker. * * *

However destructive this drilling may seem to be, it does not seriously affect the vitality of the trees; the pits are but 4 to 5 mm. deep, penetrating only those outer layers of the bark which after a time scale off. We should judge that all evidence of this woodpecker’s work is thus removed through natural process within about three years. The heartwood of the tree therefore seems not to be damaged at all by the woodpecker’s work; it is damaged, however, by the work of the true sapsucker. Our inference from these facts is that the willow woodpecker feeds on the inner layers of bark, which the bird exposes through the perforations described above. We watched a bird at work; moreover, bits of inner bark-fibers were found adhering to the bristles around the bill of a bird shot.

Evidently this observation and report started the same old controversy that arose in connection with the eastern bird, which has been referred to under that subspecies. Charles W. Michael intimated, in course of conversation with Dr. Grinnell, that they were mistaken in ascribing these drillings to willow woodpeckers rather than to red-breasted sapsuckers. This led to the publication, by Dr. Grinnell (1928a), of the evidence produced by Mr. Michael and himself, to which the reader is referred. In spite of some evidence, and more supposed evidence, to the contrary, it now seems to be generally conceded that the downy woodpeckers seldom, if ever, drill these holes for themselves, but that they often feed from holes drilled by sapsuckers. The small amount of drilling done by the downy woodpeckers seems to do the trees no great harm.

Behavior.—Grinnell and Storer (1924) write:

The quietness of the willow woodpecker, as compared with most other species in its family, is noteworthy. We heard no single call note from it, and only at long intervals did we hear the indescribable short trill characteristic of this bird. Individuals are much restricted in range, foraging along a relatively short line of cottonwoods or willows day after day. Once a bird is located, it can usually be found in the same place regularly. When foraging it moves about with very little commotion, and even when drilling for insects works so quietly that only a keen auditor can detect its presence. No matter what the season of the year, a pair of these birds is to be found usually within hearing of each other. The bird’s close adherence to deciduous trees makes it more conspicuous and easier to observe in late fall and winter than in the summertime when the trees are fully leaved out; but even in winter, our experience with the willow woodpecker led us to consider it about the most elusive of all the diurnal birds of the Yosemite region.

We had always supposed that the rapid series of notes uttered by this species were given only by the adult male and hence constituted a sort of song. But on June 24, 1920, in Yosemite Valley a juvenile male was found, with his head out of a nest hole eight feet above the ground in a dead branch of a live willow, giving every few moments this very series of notes. The large crown patch of red on this bird established its age and sex clearly. There was every indication that the notes were being given as a food call.

M. P. Skinner contributes the following note:

One seen in Sequoia National Park in August was drilling at the bases of willow shoots near a river. It perched lengthwise of the stems. It managed to keep well hidden, but worked industriously and did not change its position much during the short time that I could see it. Later, I caught a glimpse occasionally of the woodpecker’s red head, although the bird kept hidden most of the time. This reminded me that I had often wondered why red usually marked a woodpecker’s head. Certainly it makes a wonderful recognition mark. In that way it might well be that red on the constantly moving head of the woodpecker would be of value to the race.

DRYOBATES BOREALIS (Vieillot)

RED-COCKADED WOODPECKER

Plates [9], [10]

HABITS
Contributed by Eugene Edmond Murphey

Introduced to ornithology by Wilson under the name of Picus querulus, the red-cockaded woodpecker is locally common throughout the open pine country of the South Atlantic and Gulf States and extends its range into the pine country of Oklahoma and Missouri. Its preference is very definitely for the open woods, shunning the dense thickets of second-growth pine and the deep recesses of the cypress swamps even when the latter are only a few hundred yards away from its chosen environment. These open pine woods, which abound both in the Austro-Riparian and Carolinian Zones of the South Atlantic and Gulf States, represent not a normal growth of pine forest but an original pine forest modified by the pernicious custom of annually burning the woods under the impression that in that way next year’s pasturage will be improved.

As a result, the younger trees and seedlings are killed off. Only the hardier and more resistant survivors remain, so that there is little or no underbrush and the general appearance of these woods is more that of an open glade or park than of typical pine forest. William Brewster (1882) comments on the character of these forests as follows: “The pine lands of the South have an open park-like character that is a continual surprise to one accustomed only to New England forests. The trees rarely stand in close proximity to one another, and they are often so widely scattered that the general effect is that of an opening rather than a forest.” These pines are chiefly Pinus palustris Miller, Pinus ellioti Engelmann, and Pinus taeda Linnaeus.

From many sections of the South where it was formerly common, the red-cockaded woodpecker has disappeared by reason of the ruthless destruction of pine forests by the lumbermen. When the large timber is cut out, the birds leave the locality and apparently do not return. However, there is still a considerable amount of pine forest suitable for its nesting that is held in private hands and not about to be destroyed. In fact, such timber holdings are largely on the increase, particularly in the “low country” of South Carolina and Georgia and in certain zones around Thomasville, Ga., and Aiken, S. C., where vast tracts are being conserved by private ownership as game refuges and shooting preserves.

There is also a very considerable amount of intelligent reforestation being carried out, which in time will also furnish adequate and suitable breeding grounds. This species is so highly specialized at least in the South Atlantic States in its habits and its choice of environment that the destruction of the pine forests would probably put its existence in serious jeopardy.

Nesting.—Audubon (1842) stated that “the nest is not unfrequently bored in a decayed stump about thirty feet high.” G. W. Morse (1927) found the bird nesting in a willow tree in a pasture in Oklahoma. M. G. Vaiden (MS.) reports from Collins, Miss., the taking of a nest from a pine tree, the top of which was dead and the nest hole about 8 feet from the top. Arthur T. Wayne (1906), who has probably had more intimate experience with this bird than any other observer, states:

I have seen perhaps a thousand holes in which this woodpecker had bred or was breeding, and every one was excavated in a living pine tree, ranging from eighteen to one hundred feet above the ground. This bird never lays its eggs until the pine gum pours freely from beneath and around the hole, and in order to accelerate the flow the birds puncture the bark to the “skin” of the tree thereby causing the gum to exude freely. This species, unlike the Pileated Woodpecker, returns to the same hole year after year until it can no longer make the gum exude. But like the Pileated Woodpecker, it is much attached to the tree in which it has first made its nest, and as long as it can find a suitable spot it will continue to excavate new holes until the tree is killed by this process of boring. I have frequently counted as many as four holes in one tree, and in two instances I have seen as many as eight. These birds seem to know by instinct that the center of the tree is rotten, or what lumber men call “black-heart,” and they never make a mistake when selecting a tree! The hole is bored through the solid wood, generally a little upward, and to the center of the tree (which is always rotten).

The overwhelming majority of observers who have studied the red-cockaded woodpecker in its normal habitat concur in the opinion that the site of selection for the nest hole is in a living pine that, however, has begun to rot at the core, and this condition of the heart of the tree the birds seem to be able to discern with unfailing accuracy. All the nests I have seen and studied were in living pines, and other ornithologists have made similar observations. T. Gilbert Pearson (1909) says: “So far as I have observed, always excavated in the trunk of a living pine tree. The site chosen varies from twenty-five to fifty feet from the earth.” H. L. Harllee (MS.), of Florence, S. C, writes: “It nests in the same hole each year in close proximity to several pairs, usually from two to four.” The observations of Gilbert R. Rossignol (MS.), writing from Savannah, Ga., agree with the foregoing. He states: “Before the lumberman invaded our great pine forests, the red-cockaded was fairly common, for I have found 10 or 12 pairs nesting in a 50-acre tract, provided, of course, that the pine trees were not too close to one another. These little woodpeckers did not like dark heavily timbered forests. The bird drills a hole in a living pine ranging from 25 to 80 or more feet high, and it is almost impossible to get the eggs without full equipment. It takes a brace and bit to bore holes a little above where you think the bottom of the nest is located, and then sometimes you strike below it, or again right into it on an incomplete set or no eggs at all. The eggs I have found were always more or less sticky with pine gum. This bird will nest in the same hole for several years and use the same tree probably during its entire life, but if the tree dies, or the gum does not flow freely, the birds will desert their old home.” Henry Nehrling (1882), writing from Texas, states that “it usually excavates its nesting sites in deciduous trees,” and E. A. McIlhenny (Bendire, 1895) that “in southern Louisiana it generally nests in willow and china trees.” The nesting hole is bored usually slightly upward for several inches then straight through into the softer unsound heart of the tree and downward for 8 inches to a foot or more. The nest cavity is gourd-shaped, and the eggs are laid upon fine chips and debris in the bottom of the cavity. The most striking thing about the nesting site, however, is due to the bird’s custom of drilling numerous small holes through the bark of the tree until the resin exudes freely. This glazed patch of gum around the nesting hole is unmistakable and when once seen becomes an easy landmark for the location of the nests, inasmuch as it may be discerned through the open woods for a distance of several hundred yards. During the period of incubation, the birds are a sorry spectacle, the abdomen being largely denuded of feathers, as is customary with many birds, and the breast feathers from the clavicle to the end of the sternum begaumed and matted together with resin, and, in fact, they remain permanently unfit to be taken as specimens until the next molting has been completed.

The nidification is earlier along the coast and southward than in the interior and toward the northern limits of its range, beginning sometimes as early as February, but the major nesting season may be said to be the last week in April and the first week in May.

S. A. Grimes tells us that old nests of this species are used by red-bellied and red-headed woodpeckers, white-breasted nuthatches, bluebirds, crested flycatchers, and flying squirrels.

Eggs.—The eggs vary from three to five in number, the latter being unusual; they are elliptically ovate in shape, pure glossy white, and semitranslucent when fresh. Not infrequently they are stained or smeared with resin from the breast feathers of the incubating bird. As a rule only one brood is raised in a season unless the first set has been taken, and both parents participate in incubation. There is some evidence tending to show that the eggs and even the unfledged young are sometimes thrown out of the nest by the birds when it has been disturbed.

The measurements of 50 eggs average 24.04 by 17.86 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 26.42 by 18.54, 26.4 by 19.8, 21.38 by 17.46, and 23.77 by 16.66 millimeters.

Plumages.—The young in their first plumage bear the general color pattern of the adults with this important exception—the young male has a dull crimson oval central crown patch. However, while the pattern is identical with that of adult birds, the black is replaced by a dark sepia merging at times into an aniline black, and the bluish gloss evident on the crowns of the mature birds is lacking. Similarly, the feathers of the cheek patch in both sexes lack the fine silky gloss and texture that are later attained. The underparts show uniformly a buffy or ochraceous wash everywhere, and the barring of the tail is more pronounced. During this phase, the plumage is much softer and looser than it subsequently becomes.

With the first molt, the red crown patch is lost.

It is the belief of the writer, without sufficient specimens properly to verify it, that the cockades of the full adult male plumage are not attained until at least the third molt. Without careful dissection and sex determination of the immature birds, a fact notoriously difficult to the average ornithologist, the young of both sexes, after the crown patch is lost and the cockades have not appeared, would be indistinguishable.

Food.—The food, like that of most woodpeckers, consists primarily of larvae of various wood-boring insects, although beetles and grubs of other kinds as well as ants, grasshoppers, crickets, and caterpillars are frequently taken. An interesting habit of the red-cockaded woodpecker is that of going into the cornfields throughout the South at the time when the corn is at the roasting-ear stage and when many of the ears are infested with a worm that damages the grain to a very considerable extent. This habit is reported by Billy Ward (1930), of Timmonsville, S. C., and by Edward Dingle (1926), of Mount Pleasant, S. C., who says, “The Red-cockaded Woodpecker (Phrenopicus borealis) is very commonly found in cornfields during the time the corn is in the ear; in fact, the bird spends a large part of its time at this season in extracting the worms that bore into the ears of corn. I have often, at short distance, watched them engaged in this valuable work.” They also feed on pine mast, the small wild grape, pokeberries, and other small wild fruit. I have never seen them in orchards or in fig trees, where the red-headed woodpecker is frequently found feeding.

As far as is known, this species does not visit cultivated fields, except as above referred to, or orchards and is not destructive to fruit and deserves to be regarded as wholly beneficial. This statement takes into account the fact that a number of observers say that they will continue to bore into certain pines that they have selected for a nesting site until the tree is killed. The fact is, however, that the tree is diseased and unsound before the woodpecker begins to utilize it and is already worthless for lumber, so that this species seems worthy of complete protection.

Behavior.—The bird is strikingly gregarious as compared with other woodpeckers and is ordinarily to be found in small groups of six, eight, or even ten individuals, which seem to keep in continuous touch with one another, calling back and forth, sounding their drum roll on resonant timber and apparently not satisfied unless assured of the near presence of the group.

This behavior is no doubt due to the fact that the family remains together until early in winter, although family groups are probably joined by other individuals until the number above referred to is attained. Numerous observers speak of the frequent association of the red-cockaded woodpecker with other birds. This to the mind of the writer, however, is purely accidental and is due to the fact that there are certain species of birds that inhabit the open pineries and have common feeding ground and habitat. It is true that one often sees bluebirds, tufted titmice, white-breasted and brown-headed nuthatches, and red-cockaded woodpeckers in the same woodland and that when sitting quietly and concealed all the species mentioned pass in review before the observer, but probably it is not a true gregariousness that embraces all these various species; rather the restlessness that so frequently seems to possess the avian population of a given tract of woods communicates itself from one to the other and the entire avifauna of a limited patch of woodland begins to move in a certain direction perhaps because of some alarm which has been communicated from one member of the group to the others.

These woodpeckers are exceedingly active, galloping from one tree to another and rapidly ascending it in quest of food or apparently often merely to secure a better observation point somewhere near the top of the tree. Their usual custom is to ascend the tree in spirals, although they have frequently been observed to continue a straight course up the trunk particularly when feeding. The bird may be described as wary rather than shy and is most adept at the familiar woodpecker trick of keeping the trunk of the tree between an approaching observer and itself.

As a rule they do not feed close to the ground, nor have I ever observed one on the ground even after the burning of a woodland, at which time the flicker and the red-bellied woodpecker may both be observed on the ground searching for grubs and insects killed by the blaze. Dr. Irving Phinizy (MS.) states that he has on several occasions observed the red-cockaded woodpecker descend a tree in a series of backward hops. This the writer has never observed. Arthur H. Howell (1932) states that the ivorybill inches backward down a tree, a somewhat different procedure. Frequently also they are observed, particularly when feeding near the top of a pine and out toward the end of a limb, to descend the hanging limb nuthatch fashion. Much of their feeding is done in the highest branches of the trees, and they seem to have a predilection for remaining there, spending a considerable portion of their time in the very crown of the tree, where they are very difficult to see.

They are exceedingly quarrelsome, particularly during the breeding season, yet their quarrels do not seem to be so serious or so prolonged as those of the red-headed woodpecker; and not infrequently, after the lapse of a very little time, birds that have been scolding one another most extensively again alight on the same pine tree and go about their respective businesses in perfect amity.

C. J. Maynard (1896) states, concerning its habits, as follows:

Wilson called the Cockaded Woodpeckers, Picus querulus, and this seems, at first glance, to be a most appropriate name, for, of all the family, these are not only the most noisy, but their notes are given in a decidedly fretful tone as if the birds were constantly in an irritable state of mind. It must have been upon the impulse of the moment, however, that the Pioneer Ornithologist gave them the name of Querulus Woodpeckers, for a close study of their habits gives a very different impression of them. They are, in fact, a most jovial class of birds, being almost constantly engaged in sporting about the tops of tall pines or chasing one another from tree to tree, uttering their peevish sounding notes very frequently when in the best humor. The noise is more noticeable because they congregate in flocks, and it is quite rare to find even a pair without other companions. They are also fond of the company of other members of the family and will even associate with the Jays, Blue Birds, or Warblers. This gregarious instinct does not forsake them during the breeding season, for they build in detached communities. The nests are almost always in living pines, often thirty or forty feet from the ground; thus, as the trunks of these trees are covered with a smooth bark, it is quite difficult to climb them and, when the nests are reached it is not easy to cut the hard wood, especially as the straight trunks afford no foot-hold.

In flight, the cockaded woodpeckers resemble the downy but when they alight they strike the object upon which they wish to rest very hard. Like the preceding species, they are also exceedingly agile, moving spirally up the tall tree trunks with great celerity. Although they will occasionally alight near the ground, yet they spend the greater part of their time in the tops of the lofty pines; in fact, they pass a large portion of their lives there, for they are seldom, if ever, found elsewhere than in the piney woods and they inhabit this kind of woodland even to the extreme southern portion of the main-land of Florida.

The bird is resident throughout its normal range, although David V. Hembree, of Roswell, Ga., in the very foothills of the Appalachian Range, a lifelong student and collector of birds, writes me, “This bird does not breed in this locality. I have never seen a nest. A few are found here, nearly always males in April or May, and I have always thought them to be migrants or strays from their regular range.”

In common with the other small black and white woodpeckers, this species carries the vernacular name of sapsucker and in the main is not differentiated from the others, although one astute lumberman once said to me: “Speaking of sapsuckers, there is a piney-woods sapsucker which is different from the others, leastways he acts different.”

Voice.—The voice is variously described by different observers—“harsh and discordant,” “almost exactly resembling the calls of the Brownheaded Nuthatch,” “resembling the yank-yank of a White-breasted Nuthatch,” “they have sharp calls more like loud sparrow alarms than woodpecker notes,” “resembling the querulous cries of young birds.”

The bird is noisy, and its call notes and scolding notes are to the ear of the writer quite radically different, the scolding note being more prolonged, somewhat rolling in character and lower in pitch. There is a definite nasal character to a note that to that extent does resemble the notes of the nuthatch. The note is quite characteristic and when once learned is distinguishable with ease from that of the other small woodpeckers. It resembles more the high note of some small woodwind instrument than anything else, having a definite clarinetlike quality.

Descriptions of bird notes are notoriously variable because of the variability of the human ear, and many attempts at phonetic reproduction of the bird notes are unsuccessful, and when, as is so often done, the attempt is directed to reproduction in syllables, the result is usually a futile and meaningless onomatopoeia.

DISTRIBUTION

Range.—Southeastern United States; nonmigratory.

The range of the red-cockaded woodpecker extends north to northeastern Oklahoma (Copan); southern Missouri (Shannon County); Tennessee (Beersheba and Allardt); and North Carolina (Red Springs and Beaufort). East on the Atlantic coast from North Carolina (Beaufort) to southern Florida (Long Pine Key). South on the Gulf coast from the Florida Keys (Long Pine Key) to southeastern Texas (Houston). West to Texas (Houston); northwestern Louisiana (Mansfield); probably western Arkansas (Mena); and eastern Oklahoma (Tulsa and Copan).

Casual records.—It seems probable that this species may breed or upon occasion has bred in the vicinity of Raleigh, N. C., as it was noted there several times in April from 1890 to 1898. It also has been reported as seen at Piney Creek, N. C., on July 6, 1932, and on September 12, 1933.

A specimen in the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia was collected near that city in 1861; one in the collection of the Ohio State University was taken near Columbus, Ohio, on March 15, 1872. According to Stone (1909) the collection of George N. Lawrence contained a specimen taken near Hoboken, N. J.

• Egg dates.—Florida: 30 records, April 3 to May 28; 15 records, April 29 to May 20, indicating the height of the season.
• South Carolina: 14 records, April 27 to May 28.

DRYOBATES SCALARIS SYMPLECTUS Oberholser

TEXAS WOODPECKER

HABITS

This is the subspecies that was formerly known as Baird’s woodpecker, Dryobates scalaris bairdi, which was then understood to be the resident bird of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. But when Dr. H. C. Oberholser (1911b) revised the scalaris group, the name bairdi was restricted to the bird of central Mexico, and the Texas bird was described, as a new subspecies, under the above name. It was characterized as follows:

Resembling Dryobates scalaris cactophilus, but male smaller; upper parts lighter, the white bars wider, the black bars narrower, and with more white on pileum; and sides of breast less often streaked (mostly spotted). * * *

This new subspecies differs from Dryobates scalaris bairdi, from Hidalgo, much as does Dryobates scalaris cactophilus, except that it is smaller, and still more extensively white on all the upper parts.

This race reaches its extreme development in Texas; and specimens from central Tamaulipas and central Nuevo Leon are not so light above, showing a tendency toward Dryobates scalaris bairdi. They are also somewhat more smoky below. There is, however, no difference in size between examples from Texas and Tamaulipas.

The range of the Texas woodpecker extends northward into southeastern Colorado and southward into southern Tamaulipas. George Finlay Simmons (1925) says that in Texas it is “rather general in distribution and in choice of habitat; somewhat open post oak woods and oak upland gravel terraces; mesquite forests; hackberry shade trees in town; mesquite association pasturelands; open woods not far from water; marginal timber along streams. In the hills, cottonwoods and oaks along stream bottoms; wooded slopes of gorges. In winter, leafless city shade hackberry trees.”

The Texas woodpecker is widely distributed and fairly common all over Texas, except in the extreme eastern and extreme western portions; it is a well known and familiar bird, just as our eastern downy woodpecker is in the East; it is locally known as the “Texan sapsucker” or “ladder-backed woodpecker.” Most of its habits are similar to those of the cactus woodpecker, but it seems to enjoy a somewhat more diversified habitat and is more inclined to forage and nest in larger trees; it is not so strictly confined to the deserts and their environs.

Nesting.—Mr. Simmons (1925) says that the nest is located from “4 to 25, average 12, feet from ground, in rotten stubs or dead and partly decayed branches of oak, mesquite, hackberry, and willow trees, usually alongside lake, river, creek, or ravine; when suitable trees are not to be found, nests in cedar fence posts or telegraph poles along roadsides; when in mesquite tree on mesquite-covered prairie, entrance of cavity on under side of low, drooping limb. * * * Entrance diameter 1.50. Depth of cavity 7 to 8, rarely 10.”

Eggs.—The Texas woodpecker lays 2 to 6 eggs, Usually 4 or 5, rarely as many as 7. These are indistinguishable from the eggs of the cactus woodpecker. The measurements of 51 eggs average 20.50 by 15.83 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 22.86 by 15.75, 20.32 by 17.02, 17.27 by 15.49, and 19.05 by 14.73 millimeters.

Food.—Mr. Simmons (1925) says that it “searches high up on the knotty trunks of oak trees in open groves for larvae and eggs of injurious wood-boring insects, for the adults of similar as well as other insects, and for weevils and ants.”

Voice.—Simmons (1925) says that this is “usually a thin, high-pitched, shrill cheek; tcheek, queep or queep-queep, uttered as the bird gives a hop in its progress up the tree-trunk. Sometimes an incredibly rapid, shrill, ringing, even, not-so-high-pitched cheeky-cheeky-cheeky-cheeky-cheeky or tchee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-deet; less commonly, chickp, chickp, chick-chick-chick-chick-chick-chick-chick-chick. Drums rapidly with its bill on dead limb of tree at any time of year.”

DISTRIBUTION

Range.—Southwestern United States, Mexico, and British Honduras; nonmigratory.

The range of this woodpecker extends north to southern California (Hesperia and Needles); southern Nevada (Upper Cottonwood Springs); southern Utah (Virgin River Valley); and probably southeastern Colorado (Swink). East to probably southeastern Colorado (Swink and Springfield); western Oklahoma (Kenton and Hollis); Texas (San Angelo, Kerrville, Boerne, San Antonio, Corpus Christi, and Brownsville); Tamaulipas (Presas and Ciudad Victoria); Yucatan (Chichen-Itza); Quintana Roo (Cozumel Island); and British Honduras (Manatee Lagoon and Ycacos Lagoon). South to British Honduras (Ycacos Lagoon); Jalisco (Zapotlan); Nayarit (Tres Marias Islands); and Baja California (Cape San Lucas). West to Baja California (Cape San Lucas, San Jose del Cabo, El Sauz, San Fernando, and Cocopah); and southern California (Paint Canyon, White Water, and Hesperia).

The range as above outlined applies to the entire species, which has, however, been divided into 15 or more subspecies or geographic races. Most of these, including the typical variety (Dryobates scalaris scalaris), are found only in regions south of the Rio Grande. The four races found in North America are distributed as follows: The Texas woodpecker (D. s. symplectus) is found from southeastern Colorado south and east through east-central Texas, to Coahuila, Tamaulipas, and Nuevo Leon. The cactus woodpecker (D. s. cactophilus) ranges from western Texas through New Mexico, Arizona, and southern Utah and Nevada south to northern Durango. The western edge of the range of this race cuts across southeastern California and northeastern Baja California. The San Fernando woodpecker (D. s. eremicus) is found in northern Baja California except for the northeastern part. The San Lucas woodpecker (D. s. lucasanus) occurs in southern part of Baja California north to about latitude 29° N.

• Egg dates.—California: 7 records, April 11 to May 9.
• Baja California: 12 records, April 16 to June 2.
• Texas: 45 records, April 14 to June 22; 23 records, April 20 to May 7, indicating the height of the season.

DRYOBATES SCALARIS LUCASANUS (Xantus)

SAN LUCAS WOODPECKER

HABITS

The ladder-backed woodpecker of the southern half of the peninsula of Baja California, Mexico, has long been recognized as a distinct subspecies under the above name. It inhabits the Lower Austral deserts from Cape San Lucas north to about latitude 29° N. William Brewster (1902) says: “Mr. Frazar considers this woodpecker ‘rather common and generally distributed in the cape region, except on the mountains, where it was not met with.’ He found it most numerous about La Paz, but did not see it anywhere to the northward of that place during his trip along the Gulf coast.”

This is a smaller bird than Dryobates scalaris eremicus from the northern half of Baja California; both upper and lower surfaces are lighter in color, with the white bars on the back broader and with the sides of the breast spotted. Mr. Brewster (1902) writes:

All the characters which have been proposed for this Woodpecker are shown by the large series before me to be subject to much variation, but this, as in the case of Melanerpes angustifrons, is confined within limits which do not overlap, if, indeed, they quite reach those of the bird’s nearest allies. The restriction of the black on the outer tail feathers is perhaps its best distinguishing feature, although this is not at all uniform, for many of my specimens have three complete dark bars crossing both webs of the outer tail feathers, while in one a fourth bar is only broken by a small space near the middle of the feather. The width of the dark bars on the back is also variable, although these bars are usually wider than in any of the allied forms. The feet average larger than those of bairdi, but they are by no means always larger. A difference which I do not find mentioned in descriptions, but which is shown by my series to be quite as constant as most of the characters that have been proposed, is that the white spots on the top of the head are much larger and more numerous than in bairdi, while the red is less vivid and more nearly restricted to the crown and occiput.

Griffing Bancroft (1930) writes of this woodpecker, in central Lower California, near the northern limit of its supposed range:

This little denizen of brush and thick undergrowth requires a heavy stand of low cactuses in which to feed and rest. It occurs from the shores of the Gulf to the mouth of José María Cañon. Though the rarest of the resident Picidae it is still fairly common. Its nesting instincts are quite distinct from other Dryobates scalaris. They, similarly situated, would utilize sahuaro, it is true, but they would also be prone to add such substitutes as dry mescal stalks, telephone poles, tree yucca and mesquite and would, more often than not, chose one of these other sites by preference. But lucasanus confines itself to the cardón, at least in the district we were studying, selecting a single-stalked giant cactus and drilling its hole very near the top of the plant. As a result the nest-cavity is rather uniformly twenty feet above ground. The entrance hole is at the top of a cavity typically five inches in diameter by fifteen in depth. No foreign material is brought in for a nest. The eggs lie on the chips that fall in the process of excavating.

The number of eggs in a clutch is two, three, or rarely four. The first two weeks in May find almost all the San Lucas Woodpeckers at the peak of laying. After the middle of the month nests with young may be expected. The parent bird will ordinarily flush, especially if the cardón be tapped, but it is not very nervous about its home. It is too busy with family duties to waste much attention on strangers.

The eggs are similar to those of the other subspecies. Bancroft (1930) gives the average measurements of 23 eggs as 22.9 by 18.1 millimeters. The measurements of 10 other eggs average 21.30 by 16.61 millimeters; the eggs, in this series, showing the four extremes measure 24.40 by 18.70, 23.70 by 18.80, 19.50 by 16.80, and 21.43 by 15.42 millimeters.

DRYOBATES SCALARIS CACTOPHILUS Oberholser

CACTUS WOODPECKER

HABITS

The ladder-backed woodpeckers are quite widely distributed in the Southwestern United States and in nearly all Mexico and in British Honduras, chiefly in the Lower Austral and Tropical Zones. When Dr. Harry C. Oberholser (1911b) wrote his revision of this group, he split the species Dryobates scalaris into 15 subspecies, 9 of which he described and named as new subspecies. Only two of these subspecies are found within the limits of the United States, and only two in Baja California, giving us four on our Check-List.

The name Dryobates scalaris bairdi, which was for a long time used to designate the ladder-backed woodpeckers of the United States, was restricted by Oberholser to a Mexican form. He gave as the characters of cactophilus, “much like Dryobates scalaris eremicus, but smaller, particularly the tail and bill; lower surface lighter, laterally almost always streaked with black; upper parts lighter—the black bars on back and scapulars narrower; wing-quills with larger spots and broader bars of white; outer long rectrices with exterior webs barred throughout with black; black bars on posterior lower surface narrower.”

Ridgway (1914) compares it with symplectus, the Texas bird, as “slightly larger, and with black bars on back, etc., decidedly broader.”

The cactus woodpecker ranges, according to the 1931 A. O. U. Check-List, from “central western Texas through New Mexico and Arizona to extreme northeastern Lower California and southeastern California, north to extreme southern Nevada and southwestern Utah, and south to northern Durango.” It frequents the deserts, or the borders of the deserts, and the lower slopes of the mountains in the Sonoran Zone, a hot, dry region where there are no trees of any size and where this is about the only species of woodpecker found. We never found it in the giant-cactus, or saguaro, region, where it seemed to be replaced by the noisy Gila woodpecker and Mearns’s gilded flicker. W. Leon Dawson (1923) says:

Of course it must not be understood that the Cactus Woodpecker tries to live in the central wastes of the desert; for however much it may forage over the creosote and cholla patches, on occasion, it requires something of more ample girth for a nesting site. Hence its breeding range is confined to the more fruitful upper edges of the Lower Sonoran zone, and to the moister bottoms. In the former situation the dried stalks of the agave and the lesser yucca (whipplei), or of the Joshua tree (Yucca arborescens), and the Mohave Yucca offer asylum. In the valley of the Colorado, fearing no rivalry from D. pubescens turati, the Cactus Woodpecker is able to monopolize the willows which grow so rankly along the lagoons.

Referring to Arizona, Harry S. Swarth (1904) says: “This woodpecker is seldom seen above 5,500 feet, and rarely ventures into the canyons. On the plains below, wherever there is brush or trees, and all along the San Pedro River it is very common, as in fact, I have found it in all similar places I have visited in southern Arizona.”

Swarth says elsewhere (1929):

In southeastern Arizona, east of the Santa Rita Mountains, the vast areas of prairie land are for the most part unsuitable to this species. Wherever even a scanty growth of chaparral has found a foothold, though, the Cactus Woodpecker is pretty sure to occur, for it does not require large trees. Along the streams and washes in this same area, as elsewhere, it does frequent the sycamores and other larger growths, but these do not form the preferred habitat. In the lowlands west of the Santa Rita Mountains this woodpecker is in the surroundings that suit it best. It does not frequent the giant cactus (I do not believe that there is a known instance of its nesting in one), but stays nearer the ground, in cholla cactus, creosote bush, catclaw or other low-growing vegetation.

Nesting.—Major Bendire (1895) writes:

In southern New Mexico and Arizona it nests sometimes in the flowering stems of the agave plant and also in yucca trees, and I have found it nesting on Rillito Creek, Arizona, in a small dead willow sapling not over 3½ inches in diameter. The cavity was about 12 feet from the ground and 10 inches in depth, and the entrance hole a trifle over 1½ inches in diameter. This nest was found on June 8, 1872, and contained only two eggs, in which incubation was about one-half advanced; the eggs laid on fine chips. The nesting sites are placed at various distances from the ground, from 3 to 30, usually from 6 to 14 feet. Dead branches of trees or partly decayed ones seem to be preferred to live ones. * * * It nests by preference in mesquite trees, one of our hardest woods, and it must require a long time to chisel out a nesting site in one of these trees. While it is true that the heart is usually more or less decayed, the birds have first to work through an inch or two of solid wood which is almost impervious to a sharp ax.

Mrs. Florence M. Bailey (1928) says that in New Mexico the nests are “from 2 to 30 feet from the ground in holes in mesquite, screw bean, palo verde, hackberry, and China trees, willows, cottonwoods, walnuts, oaks, and other trees, telegraph poles, fence posts, and stalks of agave, yucca, and cactus.”

While collecting with Frank C. Willard, in southern Arizona, we found the cactus woodpecker fairly common about Tombstone and near Fairbanks on the San Pedro River. Near the former place, one nest was 6½ feet up in a fence post; the cavity was about 10 inches deep and 3¼ inches in diameter at the bottom; another nest was in a cavity 12 inches deep in the dry stalk of a mescal about 5 feet from the ground. In the valley of the San Pedro River, we found a nest about 12 feet from the ground in a willow stub; and another nest was located in a stump of a willow beside a fence; it was only 6 feet up in the solid part of the stub, and so well concealed behind a bunch of sprouts that we had passed it many times without seeing it.

Mr. Willard (1918) says:

“Along the San Pedro River the Cactus Woodpecker (Dryobates s. cactophilus) is the only one nesting at all commonly. In the lines of willows bordering the irrigation ditches and in all the small groups found along the river banks, I had quite a list of pairs whose nests I could count upon finding within certain circumscribed areas. They exhibited individual characteristics. One pair never dug its nest lower than twenty feet from the ground and usually selected a site that overhung the water. Another liked short stubs not over five or six feet tall. Another was partial to fence posts. While these selections were not invariably followed they were so usual that I always began my search by examining all the available sites of that character before looking at others and was usually successful in my first search.”

Eggs.—The cactus woodpecker lays 2 to 6 eggs, usually 4 or 5. These are usually oval or short oval, sometimes elliptical-oval or elliptical-ovate. They are pure white and more or less glossy. The measurements of 18 eggs average 21.48 by 16.18 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 23.02 by 16.67, 22.5 by 17.0, and 19.2 by 15.1 millimeters. Bendire (1895) says that incubation lasts for about 13 days and is shared by both sexes.

Plumages.—The young are probably hatched naked (I have not seen any), as is the case with other woodpeckers, but the juvenal plumage is acquired before the young bird leaves the nest. This first plumage is much like that of the adult male, but the sexes are not quite alike. In the young male, the forehead, sides of the occiput, and the nape are uniform black; only the crown is scarlet, more or less dotted with white. The young female is similar to the young male, except that there is usually much less scarlet on the crown, often only a few scarlet tips. In both sexes the back is barred with dull black and grayish white, instead of the clear black and white of the adult; the under parts are “vinaceous-buff,” faintly spotted on the sides and flanks; the plumage is softer and the markings are not so clearly defined as in the adult. Just how long this plumage is worn I have not been able to determine, but July birds show signs of body molt and an increasing amount of the clear black streaks of the adult plumage on the sides and flanks. Probably a plumage that is practically adult is assumed by the first fall at the latest. Adults apparently have a complete annual molt in summer, mainly in August.

Food.—The cactus woodpecker lives mainly on the larvae of wood-boring beetles, which it gleans from the trunks and branches of trees. It also eats the larvae of the coddling moth and other Lepidoptera, ants, caterpillars, and cotton worms. It usually forages at low elevations on small trees, shrubs, and various cacti and is often seen feeding on the ground. Major Bendire (1895) says that this woodpecker, “like several other species, is very fond of the ripe figlike fruit of the giant cactus, and I have met it more than once in Sahuarito Pass, Arizona, eating it on the ground.”

Voice.—Ralph Hoffmann (1927) compares the notes of the cactus woodpecker with those of the downy woodpecker and says that “the common notes are a single high-pitched tschik or a longer rattling call with a slight fall toward the end. It often calls as it flies, and like other woodpeckers drums in spring on dry limbs.” Dawson (1923) refers to the notes as “his plink, plink, and his long rolling chirrup.”

Field marks.—A small woodpecker with the upper parts distinctly and extensively barred with black and white is either one of the races of Dryobates scalaris, commonly called ladderbacks, or Dryobates nuttalli. These two species are very much alike in superficial appearance and might be easily confused; but fortunately their ranges do not overlap, except to a slight extent in some of the mountain passes of southeastern California. Mr. Dawson (1923) says that the cactus woodpecker “is browner above, more strikingly, heavily, and numerously barred, with less of black on sides of head, and red (of adult male) pervading crown as well as nape.”

Winter.—W. E. D. Scott (1886) says that these woodpeckers “are at times gregarious. I particularly noticed this in December, 1885, when I frequently met the species in flocks of from four to a dozen, on the plains at an altitude of 3,000 feet.”

DRYOBATES SCALARIS EREMICUS Oberholser

SAN FERNANDO WOODPECKER

HABITS

This race of ladder-backed woodpeckers occupies the northern half of Baja California, north of the range of Dryobates scalaris lucasanus, with which it intergrades about midway the peninsular. It is described by Dr. H. C. Oberholser (1911b) as “similar to Dryobates scalaris lucasanus, but larger; lower surface darker; upper parts darker, the white bars on back averaging narrower and less regular, the black bars wider; black bars on posterior lower parts averaging somewhat wider.”

Very little seems to have appeared in print about this woodpecker, but, as it lives in a similar habitat to that occupied by the San Lucas woodpecker, it probably does not differ materially from it in habits. It lives in the lowland, desert regions and nests in the giant cactus. Both races are said to be rather shy. It is replaced in extreme northwestern Baja California by Nuttall’s woodpecker and in the extreme northeast by the cactus woodpecker.

Griffing Bancroft (1930) states that the measurements of nine eggs of this subspecies average 21.7 by 16.7 millimeters.

DRYOBATES NUTTALLI (Gambel)

NUTTALL’S WOODPECKER

Plates [11], [12]

HABITS

Though closely resembling, superficially, the ladder-backed woodpeckers of the scalaris group, Nuttall’s woodpecker is a very distinct species; the ranges of the two species come together at several points but do not overlap; and the habitats of the two are in different types of environment. The 1931 A. O. U. Check-List gives the range of nuttalli as “Upper Austral Zone west of the southern Cascade Mountains and the Sierra Nevada from southern Oregon to northwestern Lower California.”

W. Leon Dawson (1923) described the haunts of this woodpecker very well, as follows:

Although one who is forming the acquaintance of the Nuttall Woodpecker soon learns where to look for him, his range is hard to characterize in terms of associations. Upper Sonoran, foothill, oak, live oak, chaparral, deciduous trees bordering narrow stream beds—all these apply to nuttalli well enough, but they are not exhaustive, save for the first, which is all inclusive. Within Upper Sonoran limits it is, perhaps, easier to tell where he will not be found; thus, not (or only occasionally) in pine timber; not in stands of pure willow (which are given over to D. pubescens turati); not in orchards, nor about cultures of any sort; not, most decidedly, “nesting in giant cactus.” Least of all, is it “seldom found along streams,” as one precocious authority avers. A narrow canyon whose floor harbors sycamores and alders and bay trees, nourished by a purling stream, and whose sides are lined with live oaks which run up into ceanothus chaparral, is precisely the best place to look for D. nuttalli.

Nesting.—Major Bendire (1895) quotes the following contribution from B. T. Gault:

I had been out on the bowlder plain [in the San Bernardino Valley] several hours, on the morning of April 23, 1883, collecting birds, and spying a clump of elder bushes in the distance, not far from the brook, the thought occurred to me that I might take a rest beneath their shade and at the same time be ready for any bird that put in an appearance. These bushes, or more properly trees, are a great deal larger shrub than our eastern plant, their trunks growing from 4 to 8 inches through; and if they are not the same species, their umbellate blossoms are strikingly similar, if not identical, to those of our common eastern shrub (Sambucus canadensis). I had hardly seated myself on an arm of the shrub when my attention was attracted to a hole in the main trunk, directly above my head. At almost the same instant a bird appeared at the opening from within, and dodged back again as soon as she saw me. The movement was executed so quickly that I was unable to tell whether it was a wren or a woodpecker, but concluded that it was the latter. Upon examination of the aperture it seemed to have been lately made. Of course I thought that there would be no trouble in dislodging her, and commenced to rap on the trunk of the shrub with the butt of my gun; but this seemed to have no effect. I then walked back about 50 feet, and taking a stand, waited from ten to fifteen minutes in the hope that she would come out, affording me an opportunity to secure her and thus solve the mystery, but in this maneuver I was also baffled. I then went up to the bush and shouted with all my might, but this did not shake her nervous system in the least, when I finally resorted to my jackknife in order to enlarge the orifice, but, from its being such a tedious job, gave it up in disgust. The next morning I took a hatchet along with me, for I desired very much to know what that hole contained. It did not take me very long to cut a place large enough for me to get my hand in, and I was thoroughly surprised to learn that the bird was still on her nest. I pulled her out, and she appeared to be stupefied—dead, apparently—but soon revived. Upon further inspection I found that the nest contained eggs. The bird proved to be a female Nuttall’s woodpecker, and the eggs were pretty well advanced in incubation and would have hatched in a few days.

The nest, which was about 5½ feet from the ground, was nearly a foot deep and about 5 inches wide. The hole at the entrance to the nest was but a little larger than a silver half dollar. The eggs were six in number.

Mr. Dawson’s (1923) remarks on the nesting of this woodpecker are rather cryptic, but I infer from them that it nests in willows, alders, elders, cottonwoods, sycamores, live oaks, and other oaks and at heights varying from 2½ to 60 feet above ground. The only nest of this species that I have seen was shown to me by A. M. Ingersoll, while collecting with him and James B. Dixon, in San Diego County, Calif., on April 9, 1929; the nest, which the birds had not quite finished excavating, was about 30 feet from the ground in a leaning, dead cottonwood tree (pl. 11). A set of four eggs in my collection was taken by Henry W. Carriger, on April 23, 1897, in Sonoma County, Calif.; the nest was in a dead limb of a large laurel along a creek; he had taken a set of six eggs from the same tree the previous year.

Eggs.—Nuttall’s woodpecker lays three to six eggs, most commonly four and often five. These are ovate, or rarely short-ovate or elliptical-ovate. The color is dull creamy white or pure white, and sometimes rather glossy. The measurements of 47 eggs average 21.75 by 16.27 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 25.0 by 16.0, 23.3 by 17.0, 19.30 by 15.75, and 19.7 by 14.6 millimeters.

Young.—The period of incubation is said to be about 14 days, and to be shared by both sexes. Mr. Dawson (1923) says:

The male Nuttall not only takes a lively interest in all matters connected with the nesting, but it is believed that he monopolizes the task of excavation. Certainly he takes his turn at incubating, and he is invariably, in my experience, the more valiant of the two in defense of young. The female, however, is probably the closer sitter, as there are several instances in which she has submitted to the hand rather than forsake her trust. * * * When the chicks are astir the father is fairly beside himself with joy and apprehension. In fact, if you ever require a symbol of doting solicitude, picture a male Nuttall woodpecker thrusting his head into a dark hole to make sure that nothing has spilled out of it since his last inspection—which occurred exactly three seconds ago.

Plumages.—The young are hatched naked, as with other woodpeckers, but the juvenal plumage is acquired before the young leave the nest. The young male, in juvenal plumage, has the forehead, occiput, and nape uniform dull black, leaving only the crown scarlet, spotted or speckled with white dots; the black bars on the back are dull black and the white bars are grayish white, instead of clear black and pure white, as in the adult; these bars are also less clearly defined than in the adult; the under parts are yellowish white, spotted on the sides and flanks less distinctly than in the adult, and with pale dusky, instead of clear black; the wings and tail are as in the adult.

The young female is similar to the young male, except that the red of the crown is more restricted and the forehead is streaked with white. This plumage is, apparently, worn all through the first summer; I have seen young birds in this plumage as late as August 30. Probably early in fall a postjuvenal molt produces a plumage that is practically adult. I have been unable to learn anything about the molts of adults. Ridgway (1914) says that spring males have the “white streaks on forehead and crown much reduced in size, sometimes obsolete, and red nuchal area more restricted, through wearing off of red tips of feathers.” The white streaks on the crown of the adult female also wear away almost entirely during winter, leaving the crown clear black.

Food.—The food of Nuttall’s woodpecker is very similar to that of the downy and other small woodpeckers. Prof. F. E. L. Beal (1911) summarizes it by saying: “In its animal food the Nuttall woodpecker is beyond criticism. Practically all of the insects eaten are either pests or of no positive benefit. While some fruit is eaten, it consists largely, and perhaps entirely, of wild varieties. Probably the worst that can be said of the bird is that it helps in the distribution of poison-oak seeds.”

Among the insect food, the most prominent items seem to be the larvae of the very harmful wood-boring beetles Cerambycidae and Elateridae; other beetles are eaten largely, as well as ants and other Hymenoptera, scales, plant lice and other bugs, weevils, caterpillars, spiders, flies, and millipeds. Prof. Beal (1911) says: “Two stomachs contained each between 30 and 40 box-elder bugs (Leptocoris trivittatus). These insects have a way of becoming very abundant at times and making a nuisance of themselves by invading buildings in search of winter quarters.”

The vegetable food consists mainly of wild fruits, such as blackberries, elderberries, and the seeds of poison-oaks; a few acorns and some grain are occasionally eaten. Grinnell, Dixon, and Linsdale (1930) write: “Trees that this woodpecker foraged over were sycamore, cotton, valley oak, blue oak (most frequently), digger pine, yellow pine (rarely), and orchard trees. On June 3, 1926, one was seen feeding on cherries in an orchard near Manton.”

Behavior.—Florence M. Bailey (1902) says of this little woodpecker:

It has a nuthatch-like way of flying up to light on the underside of a limb, and when hanging upside down turns itself around with as much ease as a fly on a ceiling. * * *

He is a sturdy little fellow, and in flight will sometimes rise high in air and fly long and steadily, dipping only slightly over the brush. He has the full strength of his convictions and will drive a big flicker from a sycamore and then stretch up on a branch and call out triumphantly. Two Nuttalls trying to decide whether to fight are an amusing sight. They shake their feathers and scold and dance about as if they were aching to fly at each other, but couldn’t quite make up their minds to so grave a matter.

Voice.—The same writer says of the voice of Nuttall’s woodpecker: “At times the small Nuttall waxes excited, and shakes his wings as he gives his thin, rattling call. All his notes are thin, and his quee-quee-quee-quee’p has a sharp quality. His chit’ tah is a diminutive of the ja’ cob of the California woodpecker.”

Ralph Hoffmann (1927) says: “One cannot remain long near a grove of live oaks in the foothills of California without hearing from some tree a hoarse ringing call prrip, often lengthened to a rattling prrrrrrt. It has the exclamatory quality of the Hairy Woodpecker’s, but is less clear and metallic, with more burr. * * * Like the other woodpeckers the Nuttall, particularly in spring, drums on resonant timber or telephone poles; it also gives at that season a rapid, squealing quee quee quee quee.”

Mr. Dawson (1923) says that this woodpecker “always has a grouch on, and you are sure to be challenged as you pass, by repetition of his double notes of distrust, ticket, ticket—ticket it.”

Field marks.—Nuttall’s woodpecker closely resembles the cactus woodpecker, and where the ranges of the two species come together, in southeastern California, there is a chance for confusion; but their ranges barely touch each other, and fortunately the habitats of the two species are quite different and mainly well separated. Nuttall’s is somewhat lighter colored on the under parts, and the black bands on the back are slightly wider than in the cactus woodpecker; but the best distinguishing mark, if the observer is near enough to see it, is the black forehead and front of the crown, which in the male cactus woodpecker is spotted with white and red. It is only slightly larger than the downy woodpeckers but can be readily distinguished from that species by the conspicuous, transverse barring of black and white on the back, instead of the broad, white, longitudinal band of the downies; there are also more white spots in the wings than in the western races of the downy.

DISTRIBUTION

Range.—Southwestern Oregon, California, and northern Baja California; nonmigratory.

The range of Nuttall’s woodpecker extends north to southwestern Oregon (probably Ashland); and northern California (Weed and Lassen Peak). East to California (Lassen Peak, Oroville, probably Florence Lake, Owens Lake, and Redlands); and Baja California (San Rafael and San Domingo). South to northern Baja California (San Domingo and Ensenada). West to northwestern Baja California (Ensenada); western California (San Diego, San Onofre, Santa Barbara, Morro, Monterey, and East Park); and southwestern Oregon (probably Ashland).

• Egg dates.—California: 82 records, March 25 to June 14; 41 records, April 21 to May 6, indicating the height of the season.

DRYOBATES ARIZONAE ARIZONAE (Hargitt)

ARIZONA WOODPECKER

HABITS

Strickland’s woodpecker (Dryobates stricklandi), a Mexican species, was formerly recorded from southern Arizona by some of the early writers; but Edward Hargitt (1886) discovered that the Arizona bird was specifically distinct, described it, and named it as a new species, Picus arizonae. He gave it the following diagnosis: “P. similis P. stricklandi, sed dorso uniformi nec albofasciato distinguendus.” The two species are quite similar in general appearance, but stricklandi has the median portion of the back and the whole rump broadly barred or transversely spotted with white, whereas in arizonae these parts are uniformly plain brown, and the markings on the under parts are in the form of large rounded or subcordate spots, instead of streaks.

The range of the Arizona woodpecker includes southeastern Arizona, southwestern New Mexico, Sonora, Chihuahua, and northwestern Durango; it is another one of those Mexican species that barely crosses our southwestern border.

Henry W. Henshaw (1875) was the first to report this woodpecker, under the name of Strickland’s woodpecker, as entitled to a place in our fauna; he writes: “This rare woodpecker is a common species on the foothills of the Chiricahua Mountains, where it was one of the first birds that met my eye when the section where it abounds was first entered. Whether it extends upward, and finds its home during a portion of the year among the pines that here begin at an altitude of about 1,000 [10,000?] feet, I do not know. So far as I could ascertain, at this season at least [August], it is confined to the region of the oaks, ranging from about 4,000 to 7,000 feet, thus inhabiting a region about midway between the low valleys and the mountain districts proper.”

Harry S. Swarth (1904) writes: “Although the Arizona Woodpecker is resident the year through in the Huachucas, it is singular how the birds seem to disappear in the breeding season, that is from the middle of April to the middle of June, when the young birds begin to leave the nest. During this time their loud shrill call may be occasionally heard from some wooded hillside, but the birds themselves are seldom seen. I have taken specimens from the base of the mountains, about 4,500 feet altitude, up to 8,000 feet, but they are not often seen above 7,000 feet.”

Nesting.—We found the Arizona woodpecker well distributed in Ramsay Canyon in the Huachuca Mountains from the base of the mountains up to 7,500 feet, but nowhere common. On April 15, 1922, while exploring the lower part of the canyon, which is quite heavily wooded with giant sycamores, various oaks, ash, maples, black walnut, and locusts, we saw an Arizona woodpecker excavating a nest hole in a solid dead stub, about 50 feet up near the top of one of the big sycamores. The hole was on the under side of the stub and deep enough to take in all the bird but the tail. A red-shafted flicker was “yuckering” in the top of another big tree, and I think it had designs on this nest, for it subsequently drove away the Arizona woodpecker; and later on the nest was found to have been deserted. We found only one occupied nest; this was at an altitude of about 7,500 feet in a branch of Ramsay Canyon; it was about 20 feet from the ground in a dead branch of a small walnut tree, which was growing up through an oak on the steep mountain side; the entrance to the cavity, which was about 12 inches deep, was well hidden; it contained three eggs well advanced in incubation on May 16, 1922. The birds were heard in the vicinity, and one was seen to relieve the other on the nest. Frank C. Willard’s notes record the finding of two nests of this woodpecker in the same region on May 24, 1899; these were both in dead branches of oak trees; one was 15 and one 18 feet from the ground, and the nesting cavities were both 12 inches deep; “one bird was seen to leave the nest and the other one entered it; after it got in, it stuck its head out and uttered one sharp note, like a grosbeak’s, which was answered by its mate.”

Major Bendire (1895) mentions a nest, found by Dr. A. K. Fisher in Garden Canyon in the Huachuca Mountains, on May 14, that was “in a large maple which overhung a stream. The cavity was situated in a dry branch, about 20 feet from the ground, and was about a foot in depth. It contained four young, which were still naked.” There are two sets of four eggs each in the Thayer collection; one was taken by O. W. Howard in the Huachuca Mountains on April 24, 1902, from a nest in a mescal stalk, 8 feet from the ground; the other was collected by Virgil W. Owen in the Chiricahua Mountains, on April 22, 1906; the entrance to the cavity was 9 feet up on the under side of a slightly leaning, dead and decaying stub of an oak limb in a dead tree.

Eggs.—The Arizona woodpecker apparently lays either three or four eggs; we have no record of more or fewer. The few that I have seen are practically ovate; they are pure white and some are quite glossy, others less so. The measurements of 27 eggs average 22.82 by 17.33 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 24.0 by 18.0, 19.9 by 16.7, and 22.5 by 16.5 millimeters.

Young.—The period of incubation does not seem to have been definitely determined, but it is probably about 14 days, as with other Dryobates. Both sexes assist in this task, and probably in the care of the young.

H. S. Swarth (1904) writes:

About the third week in April they commence laying their eggs, and after the middle of June the young birds begin to leave the nest, and soon become quite abundant. I have never had any difficulty in approaching these birds as they are usually quite tame and unsuspicious; far more so than the generality of woodpeckers, and the young birds are noticeably so. I have several times stood within ten feet of a young bird, easily distinguishable by his red cap, as he was industriously pounding on a limb without seeming in the least disturbed by my presence, or showing any inclination to leave. On one occasion the confiding, and in this case inquiring nature of the bird occasioned rather a laughable scene. An acquaintance in the mountains, passing the camp one day stopped to lead his horse down to the well which supplied us with water. A young Arizona Woodpecker was sitting in an oak tree close by, and soon after the horse began drinking he flew down, and lighting on the animal’s hind leg as on the side of a tree, hit it a vigorous rap or two. The horse and its owner appeared equally surprised, and both moving a little the bird retreated to his tree. It wasn’t a minute before he was back again, this time on a front leg, where he went to work with such energy as to start the horse plunging and kicking in an effort to get rid of its curious assailant. The woodpecker left but did not seem to be particularly frightened, as he sat on the wooden curb of the well until he was left alone again.

Plumages.—The young are hatched naked but acquire the juvenal plumage before leaving the nest. In three young males in my collection, taken on June 20, August 4, and August 30, the upper parts are much like those of the adult male, but the crown is more or less invaded with scarlet or vermilion-tipped feathers, sometimes with only a few scattered feathers and sometimes covering the whole crown and nape; they are more heavily spotted on the breast and more heavily barred on the belly than are the fall adults, and these markings are dark sepia, instead of black, and less well defined than in adults; the bills are smaller and weaker. Mr. Swarth (1904) says: “In the young female, besides occupying a less extensive surface, the red is less intense than in the male, and not as solid, that is there is always more or less brown showing through. The red cap of the juvenile bird seems to be worn but a short time, as a young female taken September 4 has hardly a trace of it remaining.”

Apparently the juvenal plumage is molted, including the wings and tail, late in August or September, when the first winter plumage, which is practically indistinguishable from that of the adult, is acquired. Mr. Swarth (1904) says of the molt of the adult:

The Arizona woodpecker commences to moult about the middle of July, and by the first week in September the new plumage is almost completely acquired. The plumage of the breast, abdomen, and lower parts generally, seems to be the first to be renewed, while the remiges, rectrices and feathers of the interscapular region are the last to get their growth. An old female shot on September 3 had practically completed its moult, with the exception of the tail feathers, none of which were over half an inch long; while several specimens of both sexes, taken during the last two weeks in August, are in nearly perfect autumnal plumage, except for some small patches of old feathers in the interscapular region. Fall specimens are considerably darker on the back than birds taken during the spring and summer, but the change is undoubtedly due to fading of the plumage, as birds taken in the late winter and early spring, show not the slightest traces of moult, and a series of birds taken from February to July, show plainly the gradual change of coloration. Singularly enough the pileum and back of the neck does not seem to fade as the dorsum does, and consequently, while birds in fresh fall plumage are of practically uniform coloration on the upper parts, specimens taken in the late spring and summer have the head and neck abruptly darker than the back and exposed portion of the wings. * * * Of twenty-four specimens from this region [Arizona] four show more or less traces of white bars across the rump; one of these is a male in nuptial plumage, one a male in freshly acquired autumnal plumage, one a female in nuptial plumage (this specimen has some faint indications of white bars on some of the scapulars as well), and one is a young male. Another spring female has some white bars on the scapulars but none on the rump. Presumably this is a tendency toward the Mexican species Dryobates stricklandi.

Food.—Very little seems to be recorded on the food of the Arizona woodpecker, which probably does not differ greatly from that of other members of the Dryobates group. It apparently feeds mainly on insects and their larvae, but to some extent on fruits and acorns. Mr. Henshaw (1875) says of its feeding habits: “When in pursuit of food, they almost always alighted near the base of the trees, gradually ascending, and making their way along the smaller limbs, and even out among the foliage, appearing to prefer to secure their food by a careful search rather than by the hard labor of cutting into the wood in the way the hairy woodpecker employs its strength.”

Behavior.—The same observer says of their habits:

Here they appeared to be perfectly at home, climbing over the trunks of the oaks with the same ease and rapidity of movement that distinguish the motions of the downy or hairy woodpecker; though their habits, in so far as they are at all peculiar, are, perhaps, best comparable to those of the red-cockaded woodpecker of the South (P. borealis), especially their custom of moving about in small companies of from five to fifteen, though they were occasionally found singly or in pairs. * * *

I found them at all times rather shy, and gifted with very little of that prying curiosity which is seen in some of the better known species of this family; and if by chance I surprised a band feeding among the low trees, a sharp warning note, from some member more watchful than the rest, communicated alarm to the whole assembly, when they took flight immediately, showing great dexterity in dodging behind trunks and limbs, and making good their retreat by short flights from one tree to another till they were out of sight.

In the Whetstone Mountains, Ariz., Austin Paul Smith (1908) observed a female Arizona woodpecker—

working on an oak-trunk, not three feet above the base; while the trees around harbored unnumbered Bridled Tits (Baeolophus wollweberi), Lead-colored Bush-tits (Psaltriparus plumbeus) and Rocky Mountain Nuthatches (Sitta carolinensis nelsoni). Very often did I run across a similar assemblage, but rarely were there more than one or two Arizona Woodpeckers in it. There is no recollection at hand, of noting above four adult woodpeckers of this species in view at once; more likely to chance upon a solitary individual than a pair at any time. The noisiest occasion I can accredit to the species occurred one spring day when two adult females were located, perched upon a horizontal limb of a madrona, facing each other, and emitting a continuous volume of characteristic woodpecker notes, the effect being heightened by that peculiar muscular movement which accompanies the vocal utterances of some Pici. The continuity was possible by a relay system; and so engrossed were the participants, that I approached to directly under the limb and stood there at least two minutes, without being detected.

F. H. Fowler (1903) writes:

The Arizona woodpecker (Dryobates arizonae) is, outside of the alpine three-toed and pileated, the most interesting member of the woodpecker family, that I have ever seen. So far as I have noted, the species is never common, never noisy, and never at rest. I have not found it except in live-oak woods, and at Fort Huachuca; on a good field day I used to see about six on an average. Not even the chickadees are as active as this little woodpecker. He will alight on the main trunk of the tree, or generally one of the largest limbs, and the moment his claws are fastened in the bark he begins an untiring search for insects and grubs. He ascends rapidly in spirals picking and prying away small pieces of bark in search of food; when a promising limb is reached out he goes on it, often on the lower side. The search over in one tree, he wastes no time in looking around, but launches out, with barely a glance to determine the course, in his undulating flight to the next, there to repeat the performance. When closely approached, he works around the tree without paying any especial attention to the intruder, and when thoroughly frightened he will take flight with as little warning as he does when simply in search of food. While going up the tree he gives, from time to time, a characteristic call, much like that of the hairy woodpecker.

Field marks.—The Arizona woodpecker should be easily recognized, as it is the only small woodpecker that has a uniformly brown, unmarked back and crown, and lower parts thickly spotted with black; the adult male has a red patch on the nape, and young birds of both sexes have more or less red in the crown, less in the female than in the male.

Winter.—This woodpecker is a permanent resident in southern Arizona, moving down from the higher parts of the mountains to the lower levels in winter. Mr. Swarth (1904) says that “in the winter they seem to more particularly favor the large groves of live-oaks along the foot-hills and at the mouths of the canyons; scattering over the mountains and ascending to rather a higher elevation upon the advent of the breeding season.” W. E. D. Scott (1886) writes: “Rarely have I met with more than two in company, and a family, two parents and three young, were the most I ever saw associated together. But I frequently met in the fall a party composed of Arizona jays, California woodpeckers, various Titmice and Warblers, and a pair of Strickland’s [Arizona] woodpeckers. The birds I have met with them appear late in January or early in February, and are apparently already mated.”

DISTRIBUTION

Range.—Southwestern New Mexico, southeastern Arizona, and western Mexico; nonmigratory.

The Arizona woodpecker is found north to southeastern Arizona (Canada del Oro and the Whetstone Mountains); and southwestern New Mexico (probably the Animas Mountains and the San Luis Mountains). East to southwestern New Mexico (San Luis Mountains); Chihuahua (Cajon Bonito, Colonia Garcia, Temosachic, and Apache); Durango (Metalotes and Arroyo del Buey); and Zacatecas (Sierra de Valparaiso). South to Zacatecas (Sierra de Valparaiso) and Jalisco (Nevada Volcanoe, Colima Volcanoe, Tonila, and San Marcos.) West to Jalisco (San Marcos and Bolanos); eastern Sinaloa (Sierra de Choix); central Sonora (La Chumata mine and Saric); and southeastern Arizona (Huachuca Mountains, Santa Rita Mountains; Rincon Mountains Pantano, and Canada del Oro).

The range as outlined is for the entire species, which has been divided into two geographic races, the true Arizona woodpecker (D. a. arizonae), occupying the northern part of the area south to northwestern Durango, and the Colima woodpecker (D. a. fraterculus), occupying the rest of the range in Mexico.

Egg dates.—Arizona: 8 records, April 20 to May 16.

DRYOBATES ALBOLARVATUS ALBOLARVATUS (Cassin)

NORTHERN WHITE-HEADED WOODPECKER

Plates [13], [14].

HABITS

The northern race of the white-headed woodpecker is found in the Cascade Mountains and the Sierra Nevada, from Washington to Kern County, Calif., and eastward into western Idaho and western Nevada.

It is a bird of the pine and fir forests in the mountains, ranging from 4,000 to 9,000 feet during the breeding season, but coming down to lower levels in winter. W. L. Dawson (1923) says: “This woodpecker is essentially a pine-loving species and is, therefore, nearly confined to the slopes of the Sierras and the Transition zones of the southern ranges. Only in winter does it appear at lower levels, and then rarely beyond the pale of the yellow pine. So close is this devotion of bird to tree that the woodpecker’s feathers are almost always smeared with pine pitch; and I have found eggs dotted with pitch and soiled to blackness by contact with the sitting bird.”

Clarence F. Smith writes to me that he found this woodpecker very common around a camp where he was located from June 25 to July 10, 1935, in Tuolumne County, Calif., in the Transition Zone at an elevation of about 4,000 feet. The camp was at one time a lumbering mill, and there was much dead standing timber nearby. Most of the trees were Pinus ponderosa and Pinus lambertiana.

Nesting.—The same observer says in his notes: “All the nests observed, except one in a Quercus kelloggii, were in dead standing stumps of the pines. The stumps were mostly some 12 to 15 feet in height, and the nests averaged about 8 feet above ground, with an approximate minimum of 6 feet. These nests may not represent a typical situation, as they were undoubtedly the ones that were most obvious to casual observation. Nests in higher locations would more easily escape notice. We had at least 8 nests within a half-mile radius of camp headquarters, and the birds were one of the commonest species in the vicinity. None of the nests opened contained any lining but chips of wood, and the cavities were about 14 inches in depth. None of the nest trees were less than 2 feet in diameter at the point where the nest was located. Many of the stumps had several holes in them, some of which had been nests in previous years, and some of which had been merely abortive attempts at drilling. The one nest in the oak, referred to above, was in a live tree with a decayed heart.”

Major Bendire (1895) writes:

Nidification usually begins about the middle of May and continues through June. The sexes relieve each other in the preparation of the nesting site, which is usually located in a dead stub of a pine or fir; one that is partly decayed seems to be preferred as it rarely excavates one in solid, hard wood. The nesting sites are seldom situated over 15 feet from the ground, and sometimes as low as 2 feet. The entrance hole is about 1½ inches wide, perfectly circular, and just large enough to admit the bird; the inner cavity gradually widens towards the bottom, and is usually from 8 to 12 inches deep, the eggs lying on a slight layer of fine chips, in which they become well embedded as incubation advances. Occasionally a rather peculiar site is selected. Mr. Charles A. Allen found a nest of this species in a post in one of the snow sheds on the Central Pacific Railroad, between Blue Canyon and Emigrant Gap, about 40 feet from the entrance of the shed, and some thirty trains passed daily within a few feet of the nest, which contained six eggs when found.

Milton P. Skinner sends me the following notes on nest building by this woodpecker: “On May 10, 1933, I found one at work on a hole in a stub of a tree, about 3 feet above ground. Although this was in the Sequoia National Park beside one of the most used paths, it was deepening the hole for a nest. Chips were scattered on the ground below. After pecking a while, the woodpecker would get into the hole and soon after back out again with a billful of chips. It then opened its bill and let them scatter to the ground; then back to work again. Although this was as public a place as could be found, and though the birds must frequently have been disturbed by the crowds of people and were within reach of hundreds of children, they succeeded in raising their brood of young. In spite of nesting so low, most of these birds are usually seen from 20 to 50 feet, and sometimes as high as 100 feet, above ground, working on the trees.”

Of ten nests found by Grinnell and Storer (1924) in the Yosemite region—

the lowest was located only 58 inches (measured) above ground and the highest, 15 feet (estimated). * * * No nest holes of this woodpecker were found in living conifers. Nor, on the other hand, do the birds seek what is commonly known as rotten wood, that is, wood too soft for the nest cavity to be maintained against the incessant wear involved in the birds’ passage back and forth, incident to the rearing of a brood. The tree chosen must have been dead a sufficient length of time for the pitch to have hardened or to have descended to the base of the tree, and the outer shell of the tree must still be hard and firm, whereas the interior must have been softened to a moderate degree by decay. These conditions are not to be met with in every standing dead stub; hence the choice of a nest site becomes a matter of rather fine discrimination.

They found plenty of evidence of this discrimination in the many unfinished nesting holes of varying depths that had been abandoned, often several in the same stub. “Some stubs are literally riddled with holes, these probably recording successive years of occupancy. One stub had at least 5 fully excavated holes besides 11 or more prospects. * * * We were led to conclude from all this that the White-headed Woodpecker is either notional or else very particular, in the selection of its home. Evidence points strongly to the birds excavating and occupying a new cavity each year, although one set of eggs was found in a hole which had been dug in earlier years.”

They made a number of careful measurements of four nests, at heights varying from about 5 feet to about 10 feet above ground; the internal dimensions varied somewhat, but the size of the entrance hole was “surprisingly constant”; in one case this hole was a perfect circle, 43 by 43 millimeters, and in another 37 by 37 millimeters; in the other two cases the entrance hole measured 47 millimeters in height and 42 in width; translated into inches this shows a variation in the two dimensions of from 1.45 to 1.85 inches, which does not seem to be “surprisingly constant.” The total depth of the cavity varied from 275 to 400 millimeters, or from about 10 to 15 inches.

They say further: “Two of the nest cavities we found were in such unusual sites as to call forth comment. One at Hazel Green was in a slanting upright limb on a prostrate dead black oak trunk lying in a grassy meadow, fully 150 feet from the margin of the forest. The hole was excavated on the lower side of the stub. The other nest was at Tamarack Flat, in the butt end of an old log, lifted above the ground when the tree fell over a granite outcrop. This hole was about 7½ feet above the ground, and as with the other there were piles of chips immediately beneath it.”

Grinnell, Dixon, and Linsdale (1930) mention a nest they found in the Lassen Peak region that was “four meters up in the trunk of a dead-topped aspen.” Bendire (1895) mentions a nest found near Camp Harney, Oreg., that was about 25 feet from the ground in a dead limb of a pine; this nest seems to be at about the limit as to height above ground. A set in my collection was taken from a nest 10 feet up in a dead aspen.

Eggs.—The white-headed woodpecker lays three to seven eggs, four being the commonest number, and five rather often. These vary in shape from ovate to short-ovate. They are pure white and moderately or quite glossy. Grinnell and Storer (1924) say: “The eggs in one set had a wrinkled appearance at the smaller end as though that end had been compressed before the shells had hardened. Eggs which are advanced in incubation are apt to be soiled by pitch; this is doubtless brought in by the parent birds on their bills, feet, or plumage.” Sometimes the eggs show tiny black dots, or are profusely smeared with black from the same cause. The measurements of 50 eggs average 24.26 by 18.11 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 26.40 by 18.29, 25.40 by 19.50, 21.84 by 17.78, and 22.86 by 16.76 millimeters.

Young.—Incubation is said to last for 14 days and to be shared by both sexes. Both parents also assist in the care and feeding of the young. Clarence F. Smith tells me that “the female at one nest made trips about twice as frequently as the male; her visits were about two minutes apart, while the visits of the male were about five minutes.” Grinnell, Dixon, and Linsdale (1930) write:

On July 1, the young woodpeckers, by this time half-grown, were being fed by the parents, mostly by the female. Food was brought at intervals averaging fifteen minutes each. The birds foraged at distances up to a quarter of a mile away from the nest. The female carried away the feces.

On July 11 the female seemed to be coaxing the young from this nest. When the young woodpeckers stuck their heads out of the cavity, the parent would move away from the entrance and call, although it remained on the tree trunk. When a person shook the stub two of the young birds flew out and went thirty meters before coming to the ground. When placed on a tree trunk the birds could move freely upward or downward. Within a few minutes one of the young birds could fly so well that it successfully evaded capture by the observer.

Plumages.—As with other woodpeckers, the young are hatched naked and blind, but the juvenal plumage is acquired before the young bird leaves the nest. The juvenal plumage is much like that of the adult but duller, and the bill is shorter and weaker; the contour plumage is softer and looser; the lower parts are brownish black instead of clear black, and the back is only a little darker; the white in the primaries is more restricted. In the young male, the posterior half of the crown is largely “vermilion” or “salmon orange”; these reddish colors are much reduced or entirely absent in the young female. Ridgway (1914) says that the feathers of the hind neck and underparts are sometimes, perhaps on younger birds than I have seen, “indistinctly and narrowly margined at tip with grayish, and the hindneck sometimes indistinctly spotted with whitish.” By the middle of September this juvenal plumage, including the wings and tail, has been replaced by the first winter plumage, which is like that of the adult, except for somewhat less white in the primaries. Adults have a complete annual molt, which begins in July and is generally completed before the end of September.

Food.—The white-headed woodpecker forages for its food mainly, if not entirely, on the trunks and branches of coniferous trees, living or dead. Mr. Skinner writes to me that he has seen it feeding on the trunks of sequoias, sugar pines, and Douglas firs, searching most diligently and thoroughly in the crevices in the bark for insects and their eggs; it generally begins low down on the tree and progresses upward, working pretty well up to the top of the tree before flying off; occasionally, one has worked horizontally around a tree trunk, but not downward. Dr. J. C. Merrill (1888) describes its method of feeding very well, as follows:

So far as I have observed, and during the winter I watched it carefully, its principal supply of food is obtained in the bark, most of the pines having a very rough bark, scaly and deeply fissured. The bird uses its bill as a crowbar rather than as a hammer or chisel, prying off the successive scales and layers of bark in a very characteristic way. This explains the fact of its being such a quiet worker, and as would be expected it is most often seen near the base of the tree where the bark is thickest and roughest.

It must destroy immense numbers of Scolytidae, whose larvae tunnel the bark so extensively, and of other insects that crawl beneath the scales of bark for shelter during winter. I have several times imitated the work of this bird by prying off the successive layers of bark, and have been astonished at the great numbers of insects, and especially of spiders, so exposed.

Prof. F. E. L. Beal (1911) examined only 14 stomachs, but says that “half of the animal food of the white-headed woodpecker (Xenopicus albolarvatus) is ants, but the most pronounced characteristic of this bird is its fondness for the seeds of pines, which constitute more than half of the food.”

Grinnell and Storer (1924) say: “Stomachs of two adult birds, obtained at Merced Grove Big Trees on June 10, 1915, and at East Fork of Indian Cañon, June 24, 1915, both held ants, some of which were large carpenter ants. The stomach of one of the young birds from the nest mentioned above contained remains of 2 large spiders, a large ant, 2 boring beetles, and a whole fly larva.”

Major Bendire (1895) quotes Rollo H. Beck as saying: “I noticed one of these birds on some fallen logs near the road, busily engaged in catching spiders, searching for grubs, and frequently flying after passing insects, catching them in mid-air in the manner of the California Woodpecker.”

Behavior.—Dr. Merrill (1888) writes: “Though not shy, and with care generally approachable to within a short distance, it is watchful and suspicious, and seems to know very well what is going on even if it does not see fit to fly away, though it is more apt to do this than to dodge around the trunk. The flight is direct, and rather slow and heavy.” Dr. Merrill noted that the skull of the white-headed woodpecker is “noticeably less hard and dense” than the skulls of other woodpeckers; this is probably due to the fact that its method of feeding requires less heavy drilling into hard wood.

Mrs. Florence M. Bailey (1902) says: “Xenopicus works with apparent indifference on trunks or branches. Like the Nuttall woodpecker he often lights upside down. In hunting over the bark he easily backs down the trunk, or if he takes the notion will fly, or perhaps drop backwards, a foot or so. He will also light sidewise on a branch and grasp the limb with his tail as if afraid of falling off. It is interesting to see him explore cracks in the bark. Standing on the edge he pokes his head into the dark cavern, turning it from one side to the other inquiringly.”

Grinnell and Storer (1924) write:

At Tamarack Flat, on May 26, 1919, a female white-headed woodpecker was seen to flush from her nest about ten feet above ground in a dead pine stub. Tapping by one of us on a nearby hole had caused her to leave, but she returned to the vicinity almost immediately. Then, for fully 25 minutes, while the observer remained within watching distance the bird foraged, preened, and flew about from one to another of the circle of 8 or 10 trees within a 50-foot radius of the nest, but always kept the nest tree in her sight. About every 5 minutes she would fly to the nest. In approaching it, she would swoop below its level and then glide up to the site with decreasing speed so as to end her flight with little or no momentum. Then, having gained claw-hold, she would poke the fore part of her body into the hole, withdraw it at once and repeat this performance four or five times before flying away again. Finally, after fully half an hour had elapsed, and her suspicions had been allayed, she went in, to remain. During this entire time the male kept out of sight and was heard only twice.

Van Rossem and Pierce (1915) noted its manner of drinking, thus: “White-headed woodpeckers were often observed to drink at a small stream near our camp at Bear Lake, where a pine sapling grew from the edge of a small pool. On this sapling the birds would alight, usually about three feet from the base, ‘hitch’ quickly backwards down the trunk to the water, and, leaning sharply to one side, drink by quick, nervous dips.”

Another method of drinking is described by Grinnell, Dixon, and Linsdale (1930), as follows: “In mid-afternoon one flew down from a yellow pine to some shallow, running water in an open roadside near Mineral. It alighted in a horizontal position on the ground and dipped its bill into the water six times. After each dip the bird raised its bill skyward at an angle of fully eighty degrees from the horizontal. After drinking, the bird flew to a prostrate log, and foraged horizontally along its lower curvature.”

Some observers seem to think that the white-headed woodpecker rarely, if ever, drums on tree trunks, but seeks its food more quietly; but Alexander Sprunt, Jr., tells me that the birds he saw in Oregon “drummed and beat upon the tree trunks and telephone poles at the roadside, exactly as any other woodpecker.” Clarence F. Smith writes to me that “one male bird was a regular overnight guest, hanging to the ridgepole of our cabin, outside the wall, just beneath the eaves. He never made any attempt to drill the wood there.”

Voice.—Grinnell and Storer (1924) say that “the usual call note of this woodpecker is a single wiek, but when excited, the female calls cheep-eep-eep-eep, very fast, and repeats the call every few seconds. The male, under similar circumstances calls yip, yip, yip, yip, in a much shriller tone, but in slower time.” Mr. Dawson (1923) once heard “a double or treble call-note, chick-up or chick-it-up, which reminded me somewhat of the Cabanis’s cry.” Major Bendire (1895) heard it utter “a sharp, clear witt-witt” as it passed from one tree to another; he considered it a rather silent bird.

Field marks.—The white-headed woodpecker could hardly be mistaken for any other bird. It is the only woodpecker with a wholly black body and a wholly white head; while perched it shows a long white stripe in the wing, and while flying a large white patch in the wing is conspicuous; the narrow red band on the nape is not conspicuous and can be seen only at short range and only in the adult male; young birds show more or less red in the crown. One would think that such a strikingly marked bird would be very conspicuous, but such is not the case; its coloration is, in fact, somewhat concealing in its chosen environment; its quiet behavior helps to make it less obvious. For example, Dr. Merrill (1888) writes: “On most of the pines in this vicinity there are many short stubs of small broken branches projecting an inch or two from the main trunk. When the sun is shining these projections are lighted up in such a manner as to appear quite white at a little distance, and they often cast a shadow exactly resembling the black body of the bird. In winter when a little snow has lodged on these stubs the resemblance is even greater, and almost daily I was misled by this deceptive appearance, either mistaking the stub for a bird or the reverse.”

Furthermore, Grinnell, Dixon, and Linsdale (1930) state that “it was further observed that in usual pose, either when foraging or when in digging or inspecting a nest hole, the whole back of a bird (either sex) appeared to a nearby observer solidly black, clear to the top of the head. The white showed only as a very narrow rim or border anteriorly around the black of the head. * * * At the same time the concealing black of the bird’s dorsal surface must cover all of the area of the bird exposed to the view of the potentially inimical observer at more or less distance.”

And again, Mrs. Bailey (1902) says:

Impossible as it would seem at first sight, I have found that the snow-white head often serves the bird as a disguise. It is the disguise of color pattern, for the black body seen against a tree trunk becomes one of the black streaks or shadows of the bark, and the white head is cut off as a detached white spot without bird-like suggestions. On the other hand, when the bird is exploring the light-barked young Shasta firs or gray, barkless tracts of old trees, the white of the head tones in with the gray and is lost, the headless back again becoming only a shadow or scar. But the most surprising thing of all is to see the sun streaming full on the white head and find that the bird form is lost. The white in this case is so glaring that it fills the eye and carries it over to the light streaks on the bark, making the black sink away as insignificant.

The activities of this and other woodpeckers play an important role in the welfare of the forests and the lives of the little furred and feathered denizens of the woods. It is a well-known fact that woodpeckers are most useful in guarding the living trees and destroying the insect pests that injure them; but Grinnell and Storer (1924) have called our attention to the fact that woodpeckers in general, and the white-headed woodpecker in particular, contribute, by their excessive drilling of nest holes, “rather directly toward bringing down the standing dead timber.” They continue:

Drilling by woodpeckers results in an increase in the number of entrances through which insects may get at the heart wood of a tree and thus hasten its ultimate disintegration. Water, also, is thus afforded an easier entrance and this hastens decay. Eventually each and every tree must yield its place in the forest to seedlings. The woodpeckers hasten this process of replacement, once the tree is dead.

Many of the wood-inhabiting animals depend upon this woodpecker to furnish them convenient nest holes or retreats. We have found mountain chickadees and slender-billed nuthatches incubating their own eggs in holes drilled in earlier years by the white-headed woodpecker; a Sierra flying squirrel was found occupying an old white-head’s hole. Probably, tree-dwelling chipmunks and perhaps California pigmy owls also occupy holes of this woodpecker.

DISTRIBUTION

Range.—Pacific coast of the United States; occurring rarely in southern British Columbia; nonmigratory.

The range of the white-headed woodpecker extends north to Washington (Methow River and probably Fort Colville); and northern Idaho (Fort Sherman). East to western Idaho (Fort Sherman and Grangeville); eastern Oregon (Hurricane Creek, Powder River Mountains, Anthony, and Camp Harney); western Nevada (Carson); and eastern California (Bijou, Yosemite Valley, Pyramid Peak, San Bernardino Mountains, and Cuyamaca Mountains). South to southern California (Cuyamaca Mountains and Mount Pinos). West to the western slopes of the Sierra Nevadas, Calif. (Mount Pinos, Bear Valley, Fyffe, Butte Lake, and Mount Shasta); western Oregon (Pinehurst, Foley Creek, and The Dalles); and western Washington (Kalama, Cle Elum, and Methow River).

The species has been separated into two subspecies, the northern white-headed woodpecker (Dryobates a. albolarvatus), occupying most of the range south to the southern end of the Sierra Nevadas, and the southern white-headed woodpecker (D. a. gravirostris), found in the mountain ranges of southern California.

Casual records.—A specimen collected near Point Bonita, Marin County, Calif., on July 20, 1932, is the only coastal record in that State. There is, however, an old record for Grays Harbor, Wash. (previous to 1892), which cannot now be confirmed.

In the Provincial Museum at Victoria, British Columbia, there is an unlabeled specimen said to have been collected in the Similkameen Valley. Two have been collected at Okanagan, British Columbia, one on December 20, 1911, and the other on January 24, 1914.

• Egg dates.—California: 53 records, April 24 to June 16; 27 records, May 22 to June 7, indicating the height of the season.

DRYOBATES ALBOLARVATUS GRAVIROSTRIS (Grinnell)

SOUTHERN WHITE-HEADED WOODPECKER

HABITS

Dr. Joseph Grinnell (1902), in describing and naming the white-headed woodpecker of the mountain ranges of southern California, gave as its characters: “Similar to Xenopicus albolarvatus but bill much heavier, and size in general slightly greater.” He named it as a distinct species, on the theory that “the material at hand does not justify subspecific treatment of these two forms. Geographical continuity of ranges possibly exists; but it seems quite as likely that there is a broad hiatus in the vicinity of Tehachapi Pass, whence I can find no record of the white-headed woodpecker.”

The range of this form includes the San Gabriel, San Bernardino, San Jacinto, Santa Rosa, and Cuyamaca Mountains in southern California. Dr. Grinnell (1908) found this woodpecker rather scarce in the San Bernardino Mountains, and says: “They were seen only in the Transition zone, none being observed above the fir belt, and but very few down into pure yellow pine tracts. In the vicinity of Fish creek, 6,500 feet, a few pairs were breeding in June. On July 5, 1905, I found a nesting hole seven feet up in a dead pine stub, which contained four half-fledged young. We did not see the species anywhere higher than 8,000 feet, except on the south slope of Sugarloaf, where on July 11, 1906, one was seen among the silver firs at about 9,000 feet altitude. About Bluff lake they were more common than anywhere else, and a few were seen on the northern slopes of Sugarloaf at about 8,000 feet, in August.”

W. L. Dawson (1923) writes: “In the San Jacinto Mountains, where these white-heads outnumber all other woodpeckers combined, our attention was drawn, on the 6th day of June, by a male who tittered anxiously as we stumbled along the rough trail. We camped on the prospect immediately, but it took a full hour to trace the ‘damage’ to a hole fifty feet up in a yellow pine stub, which was three feet through at the base. * * *

“We found a clean-cut round hole, one and a half inches in diameter, which gave admission to a cavity ten inches deep, and which had for its outer wall only the thick bark of the tree.”

Frank Stephens wrote to Major Bendire (1895): “Xenopicus albolarvatus is a resident of the pine regions of southern California, but is not common excepting possibly in a few localities. I have never observed it below the pines. I have taken incubating birds in June in the Cuyamaca Mountains at altitudes of about 7,000 feet. The nesting sites here were in very large dead pine trees and inaccessible.”

This woodpecker seems to show a tendency to nest, at least occasionally, at greater heights above ground than its northern relative, but otherwise its habits seem to be very similar.

The eggs are similar to those of the northern race. The measurements of 20 eggs average 24.67 by 18.60 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 26.70 by 19.50, 25.60 by 19.70, and 22.62 by 16.67 millimeters.

PICOÏDES ARCTICUS (Swainson)

ARCTIC THREE-TOED WOODPECKER

Plates [15], [16]

HABITS

Although not found in the strictly Arctic, treeless regions, this bird is probably well named, for its range as a whole averages farther north than that of any other woodpecker except P. tridactylus. It is a bird of the boreal forests of spruces and firs, ranging as far north in Alaska and northern Canada as these trees grow, and extending its range southward throughout the Canadian Zone into the Northern United States and farther southward in some of the higher mountain ranges.

In the eastern portion of its range this woodpecker seems to prefer the dense virgin forests of spruces and balsam fir, but it nests mainly in the more open windfalls or burned-over clearings where there are plenty of dead, standing trees in which to excavate its nest. In New York State, near the southern limit of its breeding range, a typical locality is thus described by Laurence Achilles (1906): “At three thousand feet or more above the sea, in the denser spruce and balsam forests of the Adirondacks, the Arctic three-toed woodpecker is fairly common. * * *

“The trees near the nest were chiefly spruces, with a few balsams and birches scattered among them. The birds had selected a rather open place for their nesting-site, as, within a radius of ten yards from their nest, there were several windfalls and dead spruces. The ground was carpeted with moss, while linnea, clintonia, wood-sorrel and bunchberry were blossoming in profusion near the base of the tree.”

In the Midwestern States and Provinces, the Arctic three-toed shows a decided preference for tamarack swamps, especially where these have been burned over, leaving a few dead or dying trees still standing; these trees not only furnish an abundant food supply but offer many convenient nesting sites. Into such attractive habitats these birds sometimes congregate to form small breeding colonies.

The Weydemeyers (1928) say that in northwestern Montana this woodpecker “is found most frequently in Transition zone woods that have been logged or burned over. In virgin forests it occurs sparingly in yellow pine woods at low elevations; more commonly in mixed broad-leaf and conifer, and Douglas fir, associations; and rarely in alpine fir and lodgepole pine woods of the higher mountains, in the Canadian zone. Its favorite feeding trees are Douglas fir and western larch.”

Nesting.—Philipp and Bowdish (1919) found four or five nests of the Arctic three-toed woodpecker in Northumberland County, New Brunswick, in May and June 1917. Most of the nests were in living balsam firs with dead hearts, but one was “in a dead maple stub, near the edge of a large burnt barren, and a short distance from the edge of mixed woods.” This was “at a height of about ten feet. The cavity measured 10½ inches from the lower edge of entrance to bottom. The entrance measured 1⅝ inches in height and 1¾ inches in width.” They say that—

apparently nest sites are selected indiscriminately, in dead stubs in open cleared ground or burnt barrens, and in the woods, where nests are often in dead-hearted live trees. The birds have a remarkably strong attachment for their nests, as evidenced by re-laying in nest holes from which eggs had been removed, and their disregard of the immediate presence of intruders. The male evidently performs his share of the work of incubation, as well as care of young. New nest holes are apparently dug each year, and these may not be in the immediate vicinity of nests of the previous year. The site selected tends to be low, only one nest having been noted at a height of over ten feet, while one, as noted, was as low as two feet. Entrances to nest holes are strongly beveled at the lower edge, forming a sort of “door-step,” and more or less at sides and even top. While this is true in some cases with the Northern Hairy and some other woodpecker excavations which we have examined, it has not proved so frequent or pronounced. With experience, one can usually identify the nest hole of this species with comparative certainty, by this one feature.

Dr. Harrison F. Lewis watched a pair of these woodpeckers excavating their nesting hole on May 27, 1936, in some second-growth woods, chiefly spruce and fir, in Saguenay County, Quebec; he says in his notes: “The Arctic three-toed woodpeckers had a partly excavated nest cavity at a height of about 14 feet on the northwest side of a dead birch stub in a clearing. The stub was about 20 feet high and 1 foot in diameter and stood about 10 feet from the border of the clearing. The nest cavity was guarded almost continually by one bird of the pair. The bird on guard clung to the lower edge of the opening of this cavity. Nine other woodpecker-made openings, many of them only partly completed, were to be seen in the same stub.

“I watched the three-toed woodpeckers, from partial concealment near at hand, for an hour and 25 minutes. Each one of them would spend a period of 15 to 20 minutes at their nest cavity, then be relieved by the other. The periods spent at the cavity by the male were somewhat longer than those spent there by the female. While the male was at the cavity, he spent much of his time in excavating, with only his tail and the region of his rump projecting from the opening, but at intervals of a few seconds he would withdraw his body and head from the cavity and look about him. When he was excavating, very little noise could be heard. He spent some time in throwing out chips and some time in resting. When the female was at the cavity, she did very little excavating, so little that it seemed to be a mere gesture. On one occasion, after she had been clinging to the edge of the opening for 10 minutes, she drummed repeatedly, but not loudly, on the outside of the stub beside the opening. I wondered if she were signaling to the male to come to relieve her in guarding the cavity. After 5 minutes of such intermittent drumming, she was relieved at the opening by the male.”

Mr. Achilles (1906) describes the nest he found in the Adirondacks as follows:

The hole, which was in a spruce tree, faced north by northeast, and was twenty-seven feet one inch from the ground. The spruce retained all its branches and some twigs, although it had been dead for some time.

The following dimensions of the hole were taken after the young had left their nest. The entrance to the hole was two inches wide and one and five-eighths inches high. From the outside of the hole, straight through over the top of the nest to the back of the hole, the measurement was five and three-fourths inches. The outside shell, including the bark, was one and three-fourths inches thick. The diameter of the nest opening was three and one-fourth inches, while the diameter of the hole on the inside at the bottom of the shaft, was four and five-eighths inches. The depth of the hole was nine and one-eighth inches.

Dr. C. Hart Merriam sent Major Bendire (1895) some notes on two nests that he found in the Adirondacks, as follows:

The water of Seventh Lake, Fulton Chain, had been raised by a dam at the foot of Sixth Lake, flooding a considerable area along the inlet, and the trees killed by the overflow stood in about 6 feet of water. In 1883 the place was first visited by me, May 27. Both species of Three-toed Woodpeckers (Picoides americanus and arcticus) were tolerably common, and one new nest of each was found. That of P. arcticus contained one fresh egg. The nest was 10 inches deep, and the opening within 5 feet of the surface of the water. It was in a dead spruce, 10 inches in diameter. * * * The place was next visited, June 2, but the date proved still too early. Several unfinished nests of P. americanus were found, and one completed nest with four fresh eggs of P. arcticus. Like the one found on my first visit, it was in a dead spruce and about 5 feet above the water. The nest was 11 inches deep and the orifice 1¾ inches in diameter.

J. H. Fleming (1901) says that the Arctic three-toed woodpecker is “a common resident in Parry Sound, rarer in Muskoka. This Woodpecker has a habit of sometimes nesting in colonies. I saw the nests of such a colony near Sand Lake in 1896; there were six or seven nests, each cut into the trunk of a living cedar, just below the first branch, and usually eight or ten feet from the ground. The cedars were in a dense forest, overlooking a small stream that empties into Sand Lake.”

Macoun (1909) reports, on the authority of Spreadborough, that “a pair nested in a telegraph pole quite near Cache lake station of the Parry Sound railway.” Major Bendire (1895) writes:

On May 10, 1883, while en route from Fort Klamath to Linkville, Oregon, and only a few miles from the latter place, just where the pine timber ended and the sagebrush commenced, I found a male busily at work on a pine stump, only about 2½ feet high and about 18 inches in diameter, standing within a few feet of the road, and close to a charcoal burner’s camp, in quite an open and exposed situation, nearly all the timber in the vicinity having been cut down. The stump was solid, full of pitch, and showed no signs of decay; the entrance hole was about 1½ inches in diameter and 8 inches from the top. The cavity, when first examined, was only about 2 inches deep, and on my return, two days later, it had reached a depth of 4 inches: the female was then at work. To make sure of a full set of eggs, I waited until the 25th. The cavity then was found to be 18 inches deep, and was gradually enlarged toward the bottom. The four eggs it contained had been incubated about four days. The female was on the nest, and uttered a hissing sound as she left it, and might easily have been caught, as she remained in the hole until the stump was struck with a hatchet. The sides of the cavity were quite smooth, and the eggs were partly embedded in a slight layer of pine chips. The locality where this nest was found was near the top of a low divide, not over 4,100 feet in altitude.

Dr. Thomas S. Roberts (1932) calls attention to an interesting feature in the nesting habits of this woodpecker, as observed in two nestings that he saw in Minnesota; he says of the two nests:

The nesting-hole was in a live jack-pine on the edge of a tamarack and spruce swamp, only twenty feet from a traveled road and close by a log house used as a store. The entrance faced south and was twelve feet from the ground, at which point the tree was seven inches in diameter. The outer bark of the tree had been chipped off for a distance of twelve to fifteen inches above and below the hole and half-way around the tree, thus leaving a large, irregular, whitish area. * * *

Another nest, found the same season, was also in a live evergreen tree and the outer bark had been similarly stripped from around the entrance, making a conspicuous, white patch with the dark nesting-hole in the center. Can this be a direction mark for the returning bird among the dark tree trunks around?

As to the height from the ground, P. B. Philipp writes to me that of 26 nesting holes examined by him in New Brunswick two were 15 feet, two 12 feet, three 10 feet, one 8 feet, two 6 feet, two 5 feet, four 4 feet, six 3 feet, and four only 2 feet above ground.

Although the Arctic three-toed woodpecker usually nests at no great height above ground, there are a few exceptions to this rule, mainly in the western portion of its range. Grinnell and Storer (1924) record a nest seen in the Yosemite region that was 50 feet above ground in a dead lodgepole pine. Harry S. Swarth (1924) found, in the Skeena River region, the highest nest of which I can find any record; he says: “A nest of the Arctic three-toed woodpecker was found in Kispiox Valley. It was placed in a dead and charred Engelmann spruce, in a strip of spruce woods bordering a muskeg otherwise surrounded by poplar forest. The nest hole was eighty feet from the ground. It was two and one-half inches in diameter and one foot deep, drilled through an outer sheath of sound, hard wood, and downward through soft, rotten ‘punk.’”

Eggs.—The number of eggs laid by the Arctic three-toed woodpecker varies from two to six, four being the commonest number. These vary from ovate to elliptical-ovate, the former shape prevailing. The shell is dull or only slightly glossy and is pure white. The measurements of 39 eggs average 21.32 by 18.94 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 25.9 by 18.7, 25.1 by 20.2, and 22.35 by 17.53 millimeters.

Young.—The period of incubation is about 14 days; both sexes assist in this and in the care of the young. Only one brood is raised in a season, but if the eggs are taken, a second set will be laid, often in the same nest.

Mr. Achilles (1906) watched a nest containing young for 24 consecutive hours, he and a companion taking turns at the vigil and sleeping alternately within ten yards of the tree; he writes:

The parents, when feeding their young, usually alighted within a space of three feet below the hole, and never directly at its entrance. They would pause here for a moment as though fearing they were observed by someone. Then they would hop up to the hole and look in, anywhere from two up to six times, as if accustoming their eyes to the darkness. Once in a while grubs could be seen in their bills, but, from the actions of the birds when feeding their young, they appeared to be regurgitating. During twenty-four hours the female fed the young thirty times, and the male twenty-nine times.

As it grew dusk, the young gradually grew quieter, and their little “peep-peep-peep” greatly resembled those of chicks when crawling beneath their mother’s wings. From two o’clock in the afternoon till seven o’clock that evening, two minutes was the longest period during which the young did not utter a single “peep.” From seven P. M. until two minutes after four the next morning, the young birds ceased this continuous chattering. The mother was the last to feed them at night, the time being seventeen minutes after seven; but the male was up first in the morning. At four-fifteen in the morning, the young uttered a few sleepy “peeps,” and the male alighted three feet below the hole at four-sixteen. The young birds heard him alight and immediately commenced to chatter. The male hopped up to the hole, looked in twice, and then fed them. The young birds’ bills were seen, indicating that they were very hungry, and were hanging on to the inner wall of the nest near the entrance. Soon after this their hunger was appeased, their bills were seen no more, and the parents had to go almost into the hole to feed them.

Plumages.—The nestlings are naked and blind at first, but the juvenal plumage is acquired before the young leave the nest. In the juvenal plumage, the young male is similar to the adult male, but the yellow crown patch is smaller and not so sharply defined; the upper parts are duller, browner black, lacking the glossy, bluish edgings; the breast is tinged with dull buffy white; and the flanks are more heavily and less distinctly barred or spotted with dull black. The young female is similar to the young male, but there is no distinct yellow patch on the crown, only scattering yellow feathers in varying amounts, often few or none at all. This plumage is worn through the summer and early fall; the first winter plumage, which is practically indistinguishable from that of the adult, is apparently not fully acquired until November or December. Adults have one complete annual molt, beginning in August.

Food.—More than three-quarters of the food of both species of three-toed woodpeckers consists of the larvae of wood-boring beetles, mainly Cerambycidae and Buprestidae. Referring to the former, Prof. F. E. L. Beal (1911) says:

Stomachs containing 15 to 20 of these grubs are very common, and one held 34. Probably the stomach is filled several times each day, and it does not seem unreasonable to assume that a bird will eat 50 of these insects every 24 hours for 6 months and at least 25 daily for the other half of the year. At this rate one bird will annually destroy 13,675 of these destructive grubs. * * *

Probably there are not many other agencies more destructive to timber than this family of beetles. Nor is timber safe even after it has been cut. Logs lying in the mill yard or forest may be ruined in a single season if these creatures are not prevented from depositing their eggs. * * * A very efficient check upon the undue increase of these insects is found in the woodpeckers, especially the two species of Picoides.

Weevils and other beetles and some ants are eaten, as well as a few other insects and spiders. Vegetable food, wild fruits, mast, and cambium amount to less than 12 percent of the food.

While with us, in southern New England, in winter, this woodpecker shows a decided preference for dead white pine trees (Pinus strobus), especially those that have been killed by fire or have been dead long enough for the bark to have partially peeled off. An isolated tree or a group of trees of this type may be visited day after day by one of these woodpeckers, during its stay, with such regularity that many an observer, who has never seen an Arctic three-toed woodpecker, may feel reasonably sure of finding one in such a place, if it has been previously seen there. Its persistent work on such a tree is well described by E. H. Forbush (1927) as follows:

This species very often begins to work on the trunk near the foot of a tree; it sounds the bark with direct blows, and then, turning its head from side to side, strikes its beak slantingly into and under the bark, and flakes it off. It often works long on the same tree and barks the whole trunk in time, only occasionally working on the branches. Thus it exposes channels of bark-beetles and the holes made by borers. When the bird remains motionless, it is well concealed against the blackened bark of the burnt trees. It seems deliberate in its movements and appears to do its work thoroughly, as it often remains five to ten minutes on the same spot and then shifts only a little distance. In early autumn, while the grubs are still at work on the tree, it lays its head against the tree, at times, turning it first to one side and then to the other as if listening.

Grinnell, Dixon, and Linsdale (1930) write of the feeding habits of this woodpecker in the Lassen Peak region:

One of these woodpeckers was watched as it moved slowly up a tree trunk. It stopped to knock off a piece of bark with a sidewise (glancing) blow of the heavy bill. This was repeated several times. Then the bird began to drill in earnest and the tapping could be heard by a person more than thirty meters distant. The blows were delivered rapidly, about two per second. Between three and five minutes were required to bore through the bark, in this instance twenty millimeters thick. Then after a few moments of probing the bill was withdrawn and was seen to hold a white larva which was quickly eaten. * * *

On one tree thirty-five centimeters in diameter an area of bark thirty by sixty centimeters was punctured completely through by twenty-two holes each leading to the tunnel of a wood-borer. * * * The holes were twelve by twelve millimeters across by twenty deep. It appeared to the observer * * * that many of the still living trees in that locality had been saved from complete destruction by the insects, by the activity of this woodpecker.

Manly Hardy wrote to Major Bendire (1895) that, in Maine, “it seems to feed entirely on such wood worms as attack spruce, pine, and other soft-wood timber that has been fire-killed. Specimens are so abundant in such places that I once shot the heads off of six in a few minutes when short of material for a stew.”

Some dead pine trees that had been regularly frequented by these woodpeckers, on the Kennard estate, were cut down; and the birds, seeing their favorite trees gone, continued to search for food on the wood piles made from these trees.

Behavior.—Most observers agree that the Arctic three-toed woodpecker is very tame and unsuspicious, working very quietly on a tree trunk for long periods, without moving about much, and allowing a close approach; perhaps, as it lives most of its life in remote northern forests, where men are scarce, it has not learned to fear human beings. Manly Hardy considered it the tamest and stupidest of the woodpeckers found in Maine. Major Bendire (1895) says:

“Like the hairy woodpecker, they are persistent drummers, rattling away for minutes at a time on some dead limb, and are especially active during the mating season, in April. I have located more than one specimen by traveling in the direction of the sound when it was fully half a mile away. * * * Its flight is swift, greatly undulating, and is often protracted for considerable distances.”

Dr. Lewis says in his notes: “When one bird relieved the other in guarding the cavity, the bird taking over guard duty flew low toward the stub and swerved sharply upward, with widespread tail, to alight near the opening.”

Voice.—Dr. Lewis (MS.) records the common cry of this woodpecker as “tchuk, often shortened and sharpened to kip.” He also says: “A male mounted a stub, about 25 feet from me, and there, in plain view, scolded me vigorously with a sharp note like kuk, repeated about once a second for some minutes. Each time the note was uttered there was a flash of whitish at the bird’s eye, as though it winked with each utterance. It was also heard to utter a rattling note, apparently another kind of scolding cry.”

Francis H. Allen tells me that the “call-note resembles the cluck used in New England to start a horse; it has a ‘woodeny’ quality.” Ralph Hoffmann (1927) says that “in the breeding season the Arctic Three-toed Woodpecker makes a very loud rolling sound by drumming on dry limbs and when concerned about the nest a shrill kick-er-uck-a-kick. The ordinary call is tschick or tschuck.” A note of greeting, possibly part of a love-making performance, is thus described by Mr. Achilles (1906): “Several times when the female was getting grubs in the dead spruce near the hole, the male would fly from some distant tree and alight near her. She would see him coming and, just about as he was about to alight, would spread her wings and utter a ‘whe-e-e-e-ee.’ This call, which was its loudest at its middle point, rose and then fell to the same pitch at which it was begun.”

Rev. C. W. G. Eifrig (1906) heard a queer sound that “was as if produced by pulling out the end of a clock spring and suddenly releasing it, producing a wiry, humming sound. The author of it proved to be a male of this woodpecker. In the course of the half hour that I watched him he showed himself master of quite a repertoire of notes and would-be songs. When flying he would say: chut chut and then rattle like a Kingfisher. When hammering on a tree and preening himself, he would intersperse those actions by chuckling: duck, duck, duck.”

Field marks.—All the three-toed woodpeckers can be easily recognized by the yellow patch on the crown of the adult male and by more or less yellow in the crowns or young birds of both sexes. The crown patch of the adult male arcticus is larger and extends farther forward than that of tridactylus. But the best field mark for the Arctic three-toed woodpecker is the solid-black back, without any white markings, and in the female the solid-black crown as well; the dorsal aspect, when the bird is clinging to a tree trunk, often appears wholly black. The white stripe on the side of the head, below the eye, is much wider in arcticus than in tridactylus, and the latter has the back transversely banded with white.

Enemies.—Mr. Achilles (1906) relates the following:

In the course of the morning, two red-breasted nuthatches tormented the woodpeckers for fifteen minutes. * * * They hovered around the hole with drooping wings, holding their tails up like wrens. One of them finally ventured into the hole so far that just his tail was protruding. They would fly away when the parents approached the hole, but would return as soon as the nest was unprotected. After some time the male woodpecker went into the hole, evidently intending to peck them in case they should look into it. During the three minutes he remained in the hole, he managed to keep from looking out for one straight minute. Nevertheless, he was greatly agitated, and would look out every few seconds to see if the nuthatches were approaching,—his crown-patch showing brightly. At last the male nuthatch came to the edge of the hole, whereat the woodpecker made an unsuccessful attempt to peck his opponent, afterward flying out with a rush, and chasing the nuthatch for some distance on the wing.

Soon after that four Canada jays approached, and one of them ventured near the nest hole, but the woodpecker and a hermit thrush succeeded in driving him and his companions away, and they did not return.

Joseph Dixon (1927) tells of an attempt by a black bear to rob a nest of young Arctic three-toed woodpeckers:

This nest was located only four feet above the ground in a large live lodgepole pine. My attention was first attracted to the locality by the unusually vigorous scolding of the parent woodpeckers. A closer approach revealed the cause of the excitement.

A bear had located the nest, probably through the noise of the young woodpeckers, which were old enough to come to the nest entrance to receive food, and which squealed with anticipation of a meal any time any bird, animal or person came close to the nest tree. In an endeavor to get at the young in the nest, the bear had bitten out slabs of green wood twelve inches long, two inches wide, and one-quarter of an inch thick. The muddy stains around the inside of the nest entrance showed that the bear had thrust his nose into the hole repeatedly. But after gnawing over an area 10 by 10 inches on the tree trunk to a depth of more than an inch, the bear gave it up as a bad job. Had the nest been in an old stump, the outcome would probably have been different. This offers a reasonable explanation of the tendency of certain woodpeckers to nest in living trees.

Mr. Kennard tells in his notes of a female hummingbird that attacked one of these woodpeckers: “Several times she swooped down at the woodpecker, who, quick as a flash, would dodge around the trunk and out of her way.”

Winter.—The Arctic three-toed woodpecker is normally mainly resident in winter throughout most of its breeding range; it is a hardy bird and its food supply is available at all seasons, the grubs on which it feeds remaining in the wood for more than one season. Probably a few wander southward nearly every winter, and there have been several heavy flights of these birds into the Northeastern States, which it is not easy to explain. Dr. Josselyn Van Tyne (1926) has given a full account of one of these invasions, to which the reader is referred. Mr. Forbush (1927) writes:

It is difficult to determine exactly what causes these unusual migrations, They are not forced by inclement weather, for one at least has occurred in a mild winter. * * * It seems probable that the unusual invasions of the species into New England follow summers when its food has been unusually abundant. An excessive food supply tends to fecundity, and overbreeding naturally compels expansion and induces migration, whether among the lower animals or humankind. Since the above was written, Mr. Josselyn Van Tyne has published a paper regarding the unusual flight of this species in 1923 in which he advances a similar explanation. He says that between 1909 and 1914 there was an irruption of the spruce budworm in eastern Canada and Maine which resulted in the death of many trees and a consequent increase of bark-beetles and borers, followed by an increase in the number of these woodpeckers. On the other hand a scarcity of the usual food supply may cause migration. A wet season with few fires in the woods or a scarcity of insects (such as the spruce bud-moth) that kill trees might, later, cause a migration.

Illustrating the length of the sojourn of these woodpeckers during the winter of 1923-24, Dr. Van Tyne (1926) says:

The greatest concentration of these woodpeckers recorded at any one point was on the estate of Mr. F. H. Kennard where scores of dead and dying white pine afforded an abundance of their special food. The first one seen was a male collected on October 17. Another individual appeared by October 20 and during the winter at least three males and two females were accounted for, while all indications point toward the actual presence of perhaps twice as many. The most remarkable fact about this group of birds, however, was the length of their stay, for both males and females were seen as late as the middle of May and at least one male stayed through the early part of June and was last seen on June 12.

Other invasions are recorded by Mr. Forbush (1927) as follows: “A great irruption of these birds occurred in the autumn of 1860. During the following winter Mr. George O. Welch often saw as many as six or eight at once in a piece of fire-killed timber in Lynn. * * * In the autumn of 1925, there was a lesser movement, and many returned through New England in the spring of 1926. In the autumn of 1926 another considerable southward migration occurred.”

DISTRIBUTION

Range.—North America south to the Central United States; nonmigratory.

The range of the Arctic three-toed woodpecker extends north to central Alaska (probably Tocatna Forks and Fairbanks); southern Mackenzie (Fort Wrigley, Fort Providence, and Smith Portage); northern Manitoba (Cochrane River and probably York Factory); Quebec (Richmond Gulf, Godbout, and Madeline River); and Newfoundland (Nicholsville). East to Newfoundland (Nicholsville); probably rarely Prince Edward Island (Baddeck); eastern New Brunswick (Tabusintac); probably rarely Nova Scotia (Advocate); Maine (Machias); and probably rarely Massachusetts (Winchendon and Concord). South to probably rarely Massachusetts (Concord); central Vermont (Pico Peak); southern Ontario (Ottawa, Algonquin Park, and Sand Lake); northern Michigan (Au Sable Valley, Blaney, and Huron Mountain); probably northern Wisconsin (Kelley Brook and Star Lake); northern Minnesota (North Pacific Junction, Itasca Park, and White Earth); probably southwestern South Dakota (Elk Mountains); northwestern Wyoming (Yellowstone Park); northwestern Montana (Glacier National Park and Fortine); northern Idaho (Fort Sherman); and central California (Mona Lake and Bear Valley). West to California. (Bear Valley, Lassen Peak, and Mount Shasta); Oregon (Pinehurst and Fort Klamath); Washington (Bumping Lake and probably Tiger); British Columbia (Arrow Lakes, Fort St. James, Kispiox Valley, and Atlin); south-central Yukon (Six-mile River); and Alaska (Chitina Moraine and probably Tocatna Forks).

During the winter season this species has been recorded north to Alaska (Copper River); Mackenzie (Fort Simpson, Fort Rae, and Fort Reliance); Manitoba (Grand Rapids); Ontario (Arnprior and Ottawa); New Brunswick (Scotch Lake); and Nova Scotia (Pictou). While no regular movements have been detected, individuals have been recorded at this season south to Long Island, N. Y. (East Hampton and Southampton); northern New Jersey (Upper Montclair and Englewood); southern New York (Ithaca); Ohio (Painesville and Akron); Illinois (Rantoul and Peoria); Iowa (Big Cedar River); and Nebraska (Omaha and Dakota).

• Egg dates.—Labrador: 3 records, May 27 to June 2.
• Maine: 3 records, May 19 to June 12.
• New Brunswick: 12 records, May 19 to June 30; 6 records, May 30 to June 15, indicating the height of the season.
• New York: 5 records, May 18 to June 10.

PICOÏDES TRIDACTYLUS BACATUS Bangs

AMERICAN THREE-TOED WOODPECKER

Plate [17]

HABITS

This North American race of the three-toed woodpecker occupies an extensive range in the Hudsonian and Canadian Zones of approximately the eastern half of Canada, which extends into some of the Northern States from Minnesota eastward. Two other races occupy similar zones in western Canada, Alaska, and the Rocky Mountains. The species is not particularly common anywhere, but the eastern race seems to be the best known. For a full discussion of the various races of the North American three-toed woodpeckers, the reader is referred to an extensive paper on the subject by Outram Bangs (1900). This woodpecker is not evenly distributed throughout its range but seems to be confined to certain rather limited and favorable localities. William Brewster (1898) found it breeding in the eastern part of Coos County, N. H., on the eastern side of a small pond; “where an elevated ridge approaches the pond the banks are above the reach of the highest floods and the land in the rear slopes gently upward. At this point a dense, vigorous forest of spruces, balsams and arbor vitaes, intermingled with a few deciduous trees, comes quite to the water’s edge and here, on June 2d, 1897, I found my first nest of the Banded Three-toed Woodpecker.”

In the same county, Charles L. Whittle (1920) found what he called a colony of three-toed woodpeckers in “a single small area of virgin forest containing abundant white spruces and balsams, the former splendid, healthy trees of large size, and the latter also large but having many trees diseased or decayed at the heart. * * * In the area of diseased balsams, a pleasant surprise awaited me, for here Three-toed Woodpeckers of both species, sexes, and all recognizable ages, were distinctly common—a colony, so to speak, temporarily concentrated owing to two factors: (1) The nearly complete destruction in this region of the former virgin forest of large conifers on which and in which they fed and nested; and (2) the presence of abundant food at this locality in the diseased balsam trees.”

Elon H. Eaton (1914) says:

In New York it is evidently confined to the Adirondack forests. I have heard of no specimen taken farther from the spruce belt than Waterville, Oneida county. It therefore shares with the Spruce grouse, the Canada jay and the Hudsonian chickadee the distinction of being one of our perfectly nonmigratory species. Within the spruce and balsam forests it is quite uniformly distributed, but is less common than the Black-backed woodpecker, evidently about one-half as common as that species. It inhabits both the spruce swamps and the mountain sides. While making the bird survey of the Mount Marcy district we found this species breeding on the slopes of Marcy just above Skylight camp, an altitude of 4,000 feet, and in the swamp at the Upper Ausable lake at an altitude of 2,000 feet.

Nesting.—Mr. Brewster (1898) describes, in considerable detail, the nest he found in a spruce tree in Coos County, N. H., as follows:

On measuring the spruce I found it to be thirty-nine inches in circumference one foot above the ground, and twenty-nine inches at the nest. The hole was on the west side at a height above the ground of exactly ten feet and eleven inches. The entrance hole was somewhat irregular outwardly measuring about one and three quarters inches in breadth by two inches in height—the greater diameter vertically being due to the fact that the lower edges had been chiselled away rather freely to afford a foothold for the bird; half an inch in, the hole was perfectly round, and measured one and one-half inches in diameter.

The interior or nest cavity was irregularly gourd-shaped and ten and one-eighth inches in depth, its greatest diameter, about four and one-half inches, being midway between the bottom and top. The walls were rough and seamy but this was not, perhaps, the fault of the birds, for the wood, although soft and easily worked, had evidently peeled off in long, stringy fibers.

The eggs lay on a deep mat of these shreds some of which were more than one inch in length.

Dr. C. Hart Merriam informed Major Bendire (1895) that “numerous nests were found in the Adirondacks in June, 1883. Most of them were in the flooded timber bordering the inlet of Seventh Lake, Fulton Chain. They varied from 5 to 12 feet in height above the water, and were in spruce, tamarack, pine, balsam, and cedar trees.” The nests of this woodpecker are not always so low down as those mentioned above; Col. John E. Thayer took a set, near Upton, Maine, on June 9, 1898, that was 20 feet from the ground in an old dead spruce stub; and the nests that Mr. Eaton (1914) found in the Adirondacks “were situated in tamaracks and spruces from 25 to 40 feet from the ground.”

Eggs.—Four seems to be the usual number of eggs laid by this woodpecker; I can find no record of either more or fewer in complete sets. The eggs are ovate, pure white, and only moderately glossy. The measurements of 43 eggs average 23.32 by 18.01 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 25.5 by 18.2, 23.8 by 19.6, and 20.1 by 15.0 millimeters.

Young.—The period of incubation is said to be about 14 days, and it is shared by both sexes. Both parents feed and care for the young, even after the young leave the nest, as family parties are seen traveling about together in summer.

Plumages.—The nestlings are probably hatched naked and blind, as with other woodpeckers, but the juvenal plumage is acquired before the young leave the nest. In the juvenal plumage, the young male is similar to the adult male, but the yellow crown patch is smaller and less sharply defined; the upper parts are duller, brownish black instead of sooty black; the flanks are more heavily and more extensively banded, or spotted, with sepia instead of clear black; the white of the throat and breast is tinged with pale buffy. The juvenal female is similar to the young male, but the yellow crown patch is smaller, and the amount of yellow in it is very variable, sometimes only a few scattered feathers and sometimes a well-defined, clear patch. This plumage is worn at least through August and probably well into fall. The only molting adults I have seen were taken in August.

Food.—The feeding habits of the American three-toed woodpecker are almost identical with that of the Arctic three-toed. Prof. F. E. L. Beal (1911) says:

The largest item with both species is wood-boring coleopterous larvae. These amount to 64.25 percent with arcticus and 60.66 with americanus. Caterpillars, which in this case are mostly wood-boring species, amount to 12.88 and 14.45 percent for the two birds respectively. The total of wood-boring larvae, including both caterpillars and beetles, is, 77.13 percent for arcticus and 75.11 percent for americanus, or more than three-fourths of the food of both species. * * *

Fruit skins were found in only one stomach of americanus and mast in but one stomach of arcticus. Cambium was found in 10 stomachs of arcticus and 8 of americanus. This indicates that these birds do some pecking at the bark of living trees for other purposes than getting insects, but no complaints have yet been made, from which we infer that little or no damage is done; in fact the amount contained in the stomachs is not large a little less than 10 percent.

E. H. Forbush (1927) says that “Miss Caroline E. Hamilton of Greenfield, Massachusetts, observed in late September an individual that remained in a yard from daylight till dark, making the rounds of the trees and remaining longest on the fruit trees at the tiny holes attributed to Sapsuckers. She said that the bird seemed to find good food in these pits, and it may have been eating some of the cambium.” He writes further:

Mr. E. O. Grant, a faithful correspondent of Patten, Maine, travels over considerable region and north into Quebec, spending much time in the woods. On March 6, 1922, he wrote that the spruce budworm had killed about thirty percent of the spruce in that region and nearly all the fir, and that among the dead trees he saw hundreds of both the three-toed species, together with nearly equal numbers of Downy Woodpeckers and Hairy Woodpeckers. Food for the birds was very plentiful, as dark-beetles and spruce-borers were numerous. When an invasion of caterpillars strips coniferous trees and thus exposes their trunks and branches to the hot summer sun, dark-beetles attack and virtually girdle them with numerous tunnels beneath the bark; borers get in and sometimes most of the trees die. The woodpeckers, concentrating on these dead trees from all the forest around about, help to keep down the undue increase of bark-beetles and borers which, if they became too numerous, might attack some live trees.

Behavior.—Lucien M. Turner says in his unpublished notes: “The manner of flight of this species is less vigorous than in Picoides arcticus, yet differing in a manner that is difficult to describe; the unfolding of the wings when preparing to make the upward swoop is quicker, the stroke of the wing not so strong, and the plunge not so deep.”

Both species of three-toed woodpeckers are fearless birds, tame, and unsuspicious, probably because of their unfamiliarity with man and his hostile intentions; both are less active than most other woodpeckers, this species being particularly quiet in its movements and sedentary in its habits. Mr. Brewster (1898) writes:

My previous impression that Picoides americanus is a very much less active and restless bird than P. arcticus, was fully confirmed by the behavior of this male who was almost if not quite as slow and lethargic of movement as a sapsucker. He would spend minutes at a time clinging to one spot and when he moved up the tree trunks it was in a singularly slow, deliberate manner. Only when at or near the nest did he show real animation. * * *

I have rarely seen a nesting bird so alert and keen of hearing as was this Picoides. The sound of our voices or the slightest noise made by an oar or paddle would bring him at once to the entrance of the hole, even when we were forty or fifty yards away, and every few minutes when we were sitting perfectly still he would look out turning his head in every direction. He would not leave the hole, however, until we were within a few yards of the foot of the tree and after he had drummed awhile he would return to the stub while we were sitting near its base with the camera directed towards it. * * *

On returning to the stub the bird would usually strike against it about two feet below the hole and reaching it by two or three quick, upward hops would cling to its lower edge, alternately looking in and down at us. * * * He did not once enter the nest while we were near the tree, nor did he again attempt to mislead us by pecking at the bark, evidently realizing that this ruse had failed. When he flew back into the woods he always took one of two courses and along each he invariably alighted not only on the same trees but on the same spot on each tree. He had one particular place on the trunk of a large spruce where he would spend ten or fifteen minutes at a time pluming himself and watching us, before returning to the nest.

Major Bendire (1895) quotes the following from Dr. C. Hart Merriam:

We had just crossed the boundary line between Lewis and Herkimer counties, when Mr. Bagg called my attention to a “fresh hole,” about 8 feet from the ground, in a spruce tree near by. On approaching the tree a yellow crown appeared in the hole, showing that the male bird was “at home.” To prevent his escape I jumped toward the tree and introduced three fingers, which were immediately punctured in a manner so distasteful to their proprietor as to necessitate an immediate withdrawal and exchange for the muzzle of my friend’s gun. A handkerchief was next crowded into the hole, but was instantly riddled and driven out by a few blows from his terrible bill. It was then held loosely over the hole, and as the bird emerged I secured and killed him.

Wendell Taber had a good chance to observe one of these woodpeckers at short range in Grafton County, N. H., on May 31, 1937, about which he writes to me: “The bird was intent upon obtaining its food and ignored our presence. Most of the time the bird would fly to a tree and alight at a height of 20 to 25 feet, then work downward, hopping backward. Particularly it seemed to enjoy prodding around on the base of a tree at or within an inch or two of where tree and earth met. Drilling was barely audible, even when the bird was close-to. Both live and dead trees were attacked impartially. There was no strip act—the bark was not peeled off. There was a row of dead trees at the edge of the forest, which might well have been concentrated on, but which, actually, was attacked only in a haphazard manner along with trees alive in the forest. If anything, more attention was given to live trees.”

Voice.—The three-toed woodpecker is normally a rather silent bird. Its weak notes have been likened to the squealing notes of the yellow-bellied sapsucker, or the squeak of a small mammal; it also utters a variety of short notes like queep or quip. Horace W. Wright (1911) says: “The calls of the americanus male bird were not excited or loud. The single calls were somewhat like the robin’s call at dusk, and the rattling calls resembled a Hairy Woodpecker’s rattle, but were less loud and sharp.”

Mr. Brewster (1898) writes:

I had abundant opportunities for studying the drumming call today. It varied in duration from one to two seconds (never running over or under these limits) but was usually one and a half to one and three quarters seconds. The intervals between the calls were too irregular to be worth recording. The first three or four taps were slightly slower and more disconnected than the remaining ones but the general effect was that of a uniform roll similar to that made by the Downy and the Hairy Woodpecker, but less loud and penetrating. Still it carried well and under favorable conditions could be heard fully one quarter of a mile away. * * *

After drumming a dozen times or more he gave a long vocal call closely similar to the Kingfisher-like rattle of the Hairy Woodpecker.

Field marks.—The American three-toed woodpecker is the only woodpecker likely to be seen in the northern woods that has a black back transversely barred with white, white under parts banded with black on the flanks, and a black crown, with or without a yellow crown patch; the yellow patch is very prominent in the adult male and less so in the young birds of both sexes, but lacking in the adult female. In flight the “ladderback” is more conspicuous than when the bird is at rest, and the tail flashes white.

Winter.—Both species of three-toed woodpeckers are mainly resident throughout the year within their breeding ranges, as their normal food supply is as easily available in winter as in summer. Consequently few species of birds are less inclined to migrate than these woodpeckers. However, on rare occasions this woodpecker has been known to appear in winter somewhat south of its summer range. Probably these southward movements have been due to some shortage of food in its summer home, or an unusual supply of it further south, or, possibly, an unusually successful breeding season may have overcrowded the home range and caused an exodus.

DISTRIBUTION

Range.—Northern Europe, Asia, and North America, south through high mountainous regions to about latitude 35° N.; nonmigratory.

In North America the range of the three-toed woodpecker extends north to northern Alaska (Kowak River, Tanana, Beaver Creek, Fort Yukon, Circle, and Charlie Creek); northern Yukon (Forty Mile and probably Coal Creek); Mackenzie (Fort McPherson, Fort Goodhope, Fort Anderson, Fort Rae, and Fort Smith); northern Manitoba (Fort Du Brochet and Churchill); northern Ontario (Fort Albany); northern Quebec (Fort Chimo); and Labrador (Okak). East to Labrador (Okak and Nain); Newfoundland (South Exploit River); northeastern Maine (Presque Isle); and New Hampshire (Lake Umbagog and Mount Jefferson). South to northern New Hampshire (Mount Jefferson); northern New York (Long Lake and Moose River); probably northern Michigan (Isle Royal); northern Minnesota (Lake Itasca); northern New Mexico (Pecos Baldy and Chuska Mountains); Arizona (White Mountains, San Francisco Mountain, and Kaibab Plateau); east-central Nevada (Snake Mountains); and southwestern Oregon (Four-mile Lake). West to western Oregon (Four-mile Lake); Washington (Blue Mountains, probably Mount Rainier, and Mount Baker); British Columbia (Chilliwack, Clinton, Willow River, and Hazelton); and Alaska (Chichagof Island, Glacier, Copper River, Lake Clark, Mount McKinley, Nulato, and Kowak River).

Several races of this species have been recognized, three of which are included in the range above outlined. The American three-toed woodpecker (P. t. bacatus) ranges from Maine, Newfoundland, and Labrador west to northern Manitoba and southern Mackenzie; the Alpine three-toed woodpecker (P. t. dorsalis) is the Rocky Mountain form and is found in that region from Montana and Idaho south to the higher mountains of New Mexico and Arizona; the Alaska three-toed woodpecker (P. t. fasciatus) is found from Alaska, Yukon, and western Mackenzie south to Oregon, Idaho, and Montana.

While the three-toed woodpecker is not regularly migratory, it appears likely that during severe winters it withdraws somewhat from the northern parts of its range. At this season it is occasionally collected or observed short distances south of its normal range (Massachusetts, southern Wisconsin, southern Minnesota, and southern New Mexico).

• Egg dates.—Alberta: 8 records, May 23 to June 16.
• Arctic America: 5 records, May 15 to June 9.
• Labrador: 3 records, May 26 and 27.
• New York: 3 records, May 14 to June 8.

PICOÏDES TRIDACTYLUS FASCIATUS Baird

ALASKA THREE-TOED WOODPECKER

HABITS

The range of this race of the three-toed woodpecker extends throughout the Hudsonian and Canadian Zones of western Canada and Alaska, and a short distance southward into some of the Western States, where it intergrades with the next form in the boreal forests of the Rocky Mountains.

Ridgway (1914) describes it as similar to the eastern race, “but with much more white on back, the white bars much larger and more or less coalesced along median line, forming a more or less continuous longitudinal patch; whitish spots on forehead much larger, sometimes coalesced into a nearly uniform dull white frontal area; upper tail-coverts and lower rump barred or spotted with white; sometimes even the wing-coverts and middle rectrices are spotted with white; black malar stripe narrower and usually less distinct, and black bars on sides and flanks narrower; averaging slightly larger.”

Dr. E. W. Nelson (1887) says that this woodpecker occurs “on the headwaters of the Mackenzie River, extending thence north along the course of this stream and the Anderson River, and westward, covering all the wooded portions of Northern Alaska to the northern tree-limit, * * * outnumbering by far the combined numbers of all the other woodpeckers of that region. * * * On the Yukon these birds are said to prefer the groves of poplar and willow to the spruces.”

Dr. Joseph Grinnell (1900) says: “This, the only species of woodpecker detected by me in the Kowak region, was resident throughout the year. It could scarcely be called common, though its borings were noticed in nearly every tract of spruces visited.” J. A. Munro (1919), referring to the Okanagan Valley, British Columbia, says: “This species is resident and fairly common in Murray pine, Western larch, and spruce forests. I have never found them in yellow pine or Douglas fir country. They prefer the burnt areas of timber, and specimens collected are generally stained with charcoal on the underparts.”

Nesting.—The nesting habits of this woodpecker do not differ materially from those of its eastern relative. Bendire (1895) mentions two sets of eggs, collected by MacFarlane in the Anderson River region, of which he says: “A single egg, originally from a set of three taken on May 30, 1863, accompanied by the female bird, was taken from a cavity in a pine tree, 4 feet from the ground, and another set of four, of which there are three eggs remaining, and likewise accompanied by the male bird, was taken on June 5, 1864, from a hole in a dry spruce, situated about 6 feet from the ground. The eggs from the last set were said to have been lying on the decayed dust of the tree, and were perfectly fresh when found.”

Laing and Taverner (1929) found an abandoned nest in the Chitina River region, Alaska, of which they say: “Tree, about 15 inches in diameter at butt, had a dead top and nest in this dead portion, about 40 feet aloft. Dimensions as follows: diameter of door barely 2 inches; depth of nest 9½ inches; greatest diameter 3 inches. Barrel of nest quite cylindrical.”

There is a set of four eggs in my collection, taken by Richard C. Harlow near Belvedere, Alberta, on May 29, 1926. The nest was about 20 feet above ground in a dead tamarack stub, among a scattered growth of tamaracks, in a muskeg, near a lake; the eggs lay on a bed of chips 10 inches below the entrance.

Mr. Munro (1919) writes: “On May 28, 1917, I found a nest that had just been finished, thirty feet from the ground in a dead Murray pine. The entrance was smaller than would be expected, slightly over one and a half inches, and the hole about fourteen inches deep.”

Eggs.—The eggs of the Alaska three-toed woodpecker are indistinguishable from those of the eastern race. The measurements of 12 eggs average 22.08 by 17.09 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 23.6 by 18.1, 20.8 by 16.8, and 21.5 by 16.5 millimeters.

Behavior.—The plumages, feeding habits, and general behavior of this race do not differ materially from those of the species elsewhere, but Maj. Allan Brooks (Dawson and Bowles, 1909) has given a good description of a habit that seems to be shared by both species of Picoïdes and that has been referred to by others; he writes:

When shot, even if instantly killed, three-toed woodpeckers of both species have a marvelous faculty of remaining clinging to the tree in death. Where the trunks are draped with Usnea moss, it is impossible to bring one down, except when winged—then they attempt to fly, and fall to earth; but when killed outright they remain securely fastened by their strong curved claws. * * * The only chance is to leave the bird and to visit the foot of the tree when the relaxing muscles have at length permitted the body to drop—usually within two days. Once I was fortunate enough to observe the exact position that enabled the bird to maintain its grip. I had shot and killed an Arctic Three-toed Woodpecker on a low stump. On going up I found the bird’s feet to be three inches apart by measurement; the tail was firmly braced, and the further the body was tilted back the more firmly the claws held in the bark.

Dr. Grinnell (1900) says: “In the fall and mid-winter these birds are silent and seldom seen. But after the first of March their drumming on some resonant dead tree was heard nearly every morning. This sound could be heard a long distance through the quiet woods, giving notice of the whereabouts of the woodpeckers.”

PICOÏDES TRIDACTYLUS DORSALIS Baird

ALPINE THREE-TOED WOODPECKER

HABITS

This race of the three-toed woodpeckers enjoys the most southern distribution of any of the birds of this genus, ranging from northern Montana to northern Arizona and New Mexico, in the boreal forests of the Rocky Mountains. Ridgway (1914) characterizes it as “similar to white-backed examples of P. a. fasciatus, but larger; white markings on back usually all longitudinal (very rarely with any transverse bars of black), white supra-auricular streak usually broader, forehead usually with more black and less whitish spotting, white spots or bars on inner web of innermost secondaries larger, and sides and flanks usually less barred with black.”

The Weydemeyers (1928) say that in northwestern Montana, “unlike arcticus, this species prefers dense, virgin forests to cut-over woods and open woodland pastures. * * * In the higher elevations, this woodpecker may be found in white pine, lodgepole pine, alpine fir, and Engelmann spruce forests. In the Transition zone, it shows a preference for spruce woods, with larch and yellow pine forests as second choice. In the Canadian zone, this species is somewhat commoner than arcticus; in the Transition zone, it occurs only about one-third as frequently as does the larger bird.”

M. P. Skinner says, in his Yellowstone National Park notes: “This woodpecker is rather uncommon, but I have seen it in coniferous forests between 6,500 and 8,000 feet, in firs, lodgepole pine, and Engelmann spruce. I have also seen it on dead trees and on telephone poles. I have seen this woodpecker in this Park only between May and October.”

Nesting.—At an altitude of about 9,000 feet in the mountains of Colorado, in or near Estes Park, John H. Flanagan (1911) collected a set of four eggs of the alpine three-toed woodpecker. “The hole was in an aspen stub, nine feet from the ground and about a foot or eighteen inches from the top, and just before the guide reached the hole the bird flew out. * * *

“The entrance to the nesting cavity was about one and one-half inches in diameter; the cavity itself about nine or ten inches in depth and quite large at the bottom. The eggs were laid on a few chips.”

In north-central Colorado, Edwin R. Warren (1912) found a nest of this woodpecker “in a dead Engelmann spruce, which was twenty-five inches in diameter at the base, and twenty at the nest hole, the latter being seven feet above ground. The nest was eight inches deep, the entrance one and three-quarters inches in diameter; the thickness of the wood on the front side of the hole was two and three-quarters inches, and the cavity was five inches from front to back, and three wide. There were a few chips in the bottom, as well as a few of the birds’ droppings. There were two young, about ready to fly, though I had no difficulty in posing them on the tree for pictures; they showed little or no fear.”

Randolph Jenks (1934) discovered two nests of the alpine three-toed woodpecker on the Kaibab Plateau, near the east rim of the Grand Canyon, in northern Arizona. One was in “a hole in an aspen tree, two and one-half inches in diameter, opening to the southeast, twelve feet from the ground. The cavity was eight inches deep and the nest was lined with a thick layer of maggot-infested sawdust. In spite of the crawling competitors, the nestlings, a male and a female, seemed quite contented.” This was on June 30, 1931. Several days later another nest was found, also on the Plateau, at an elevation of 8,100 feet; this nest was “in a hole about sixty feet above the ground in a western yellow pine.”

Dr. Edgar A. Mearns (1890b) writes:

The Alpine Three-toed Woodpecker breeds commonly throughout the pine belt, seldom ascending far into the spruce woods of the highest peaks [in the mountains of Arizona]. On the northwestern slope of San Francisco Mountain I discovered a nest of this species on June 8, 1887. The female was seen alone pecking at a large yellow pine, which, although dead, still retained its bark and was quite solid. While feeding she uttered a peculiar, harsh, nasal cry. I shot her, and then noticed a small, neatly bored hole in the south side of the pine trunk, about 30 feet from the ground and away from branches. With the aid of a rope, and taking a start from the saddle, I was scarcely able to climb to the nest, which the male did not quit until I was well up; then he came out and uttered a sudden, sharp “whip-whip-whip” in a menacing tone, remaining hard by while I worked with saw and chisel. It took me nearly half an hour to make an opening sufficiently large to admit the hand, as the burrow was situated so extraordinarily deep. Two young, male and female, with feathers just sprouting, were found on a bed of small chips at the bottom of the burrow, not more than 8 inches lower than the entrance, but in the very heart of the tree, the cavity being oblique and pear-shaped, and having the strong odor characteristic of Woodpeckers’ nests in general. Both parents and their progeny were preserved, and are now in the American Museum collection. The irides of the adults were dark cherry red; their feet, claws, and basal half of mandible plumbeous, the rest of the bill being plumbeous black.

Eggs.—The alpine three-toed woodpecker is said to lay five eggs to a set, but probably the set oftener consists of fewer eggs. I have seen no eggs of this subspecies; and the only measurements I have been able to get are those from a set of five eggs, collected by A. Treganza in Salt Lake County, Utah, on June 3, 1916; these are in the P. B. Philipp collection in the American Museum of Natural History. The measurements average 24.52 by 17.52 millimeters, rather large for the species; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 25.3 by 17.7 and 24.1 by 17.4 millimeters.

Food.—Mrs. Bailey (1928) says that the food of this woodpecker consists of “over 75 percent, destructive wood-boring larvae of caterpillars and beetles. The Three-toed Woodpeckers rank high as conservators of the forest, eliminating annually, as Professor Beal has estimated, some 13,675 of the grubs most destructive to forests. The scarcity of these useful woodpeckers makes their protection and encouragement especially important.”

SPHYRAPICUS VARIUS VARIUS (Linnaeus)

YELLOW-BELLIED SAPSUCKER

Plates [18], [19]

HABITS
Contributed by Winsor Marrett Tyler

Spring.—It is spring in the Transition Zone when in April the yellow-bellied sapsucker passes through on the way from its winter quarters to its breeding ground in the Canadian Zone. If spring is tardy most of the trees may be leafless, but many of them have blossomed, and the sap is running.

At this season the sapsucker is light-hearted and jaunty compared to the sober, quiet bird that visited us the autumn before. The breeding season is near at hand, and if two birds meet they often engage in a sort of game, a precursory courtship, wherein one bird flies at the other in a playful attack; the other eludes the rush of the oncoming bird by a sudden, last-minute retreat—winding around the branch on which it rests, or sliding off into the air. In these pursuits in and out among the branches we are impressed by the agility and grace of the birds and by the easy way they direct their course through the air. They do not appear to impel themselves by strength of wing alone, but, especially in their slanting descents, they let the force of gravity pull them swiftly along, and then, by the impetus of the speed attained, glide upward to a perch. They seem to swing from branch to branch with little effort, slowly opening and closing their wings to guide them on their way. As we watch them we are reminded of trapeze artists in the circus.

But the new sap is running, and the birds quickly tap the supply by drilling into the bark of their favorite trees and drink of the sap as it flows freely from the wounds.

Every spring the birds come to a sturdy yellow birch tree on the Boston Public Garden, a species of tree with which they must be familiar on their breeding grounds in the north. The sap flows plenteously in mid-April from the many punctures that the birds make; it wets a large portion of the trunk of the tree and often drips to the ground from the branches. The birds stand clear of the tree as they feed at the sap wells with only the feet and the tip of the tail touching the bark. The tail is braced against the trunk at an angle of about 45°, and the feet reach far forward to grasp the bark opposite the bend of the wing. I have never seen a sapsucker crouch against this wet bark as a downy woodpecker commonly does when digging out a grub—like a cat hunched up lapping a saucer of milk. When a bird wishes to move to a point below where it is perched, it jumps from the tree and floats in the air, then turning, with its wings held out somewhat, dives head-downward, drifting in an easy, leisurely manner as if moving under water; then, just before alighting, it rights itself. If you come too near, the sapsucker scrambles around to the rear of the limb, and if you step close up to the tree, the bird starts away in free, sweeping curves, like a skater over the ice, the white in the wing flashing out.

Eaton (1914) notes that “during the migration it is evident that the male birds arrive first, for during 15 years of continuous records which I have kept with this object in view I have found that male birds are the first to be seen each year and no females are seen for several days after the first males arrive.”

Audubon (1842) records the following unique observation:

While travelling I observed that they performed their migration by day, in loose parties or families of six or seven individuals, flying at a great height, and at the intervals between their sailings and the flappings of their wings, emitting their remarkable plaintive cries. When alighting towards sunset, they descended with amazing speed in a tortuous manner, and first settled on the tops of the highest trees, where they remained perfectly silent for awhile, after which they betook themselves to the central parts of the thickest trees, and searched along the trunks for abandoned holes of Squirrels or Woodpeckers, in which they spent the night, several together in the same hole.

A. B. Klugh (1909) reports a remarkably large gathering of sapsuckers on their northward migration. He says:

On the morning of April 17th, 1909, the city of Kingston, Ontario, was alive with yellow-bellied sapsuckers.

From my study window I saw some twenty of them on the trees at the lodge of the park and on going out to investigate I found from one to four on nearly every tree. As a conservative estimate I placed the number of birds in the park at three hundred. * * *

The probable cause of this immense wave of yellow-bellied sapsuckers striking Kingston lies in the strong gale from the north which was blowing on the night of April 16th, the birds apparently dropping as soon as they had crossed the lake.

Courtship.—Little has been recorded on the courtship of the yellow-bellied sapsucker, but we may get a hint of its early stages at least as the birds pass northward—the increased interest in each other shown by their lively pursuits and their rapid whirlings among the branches, as noted under “Spring.”

George Miksch Sutton (1928b) speaks thus of the birds on their nesting ground in Pennsylvania: “In late May and June the mewing cry was familiar and they occasionally indulged in strange courtship antics, flashing through the tops of the trees, calling excitedly in tones resembling those of a flicker, and dancing about with wings and tail spread in a manner utterly foreign to the usually stolid bearing of migrant individuals.”

Of the spring drumming, perhaps a part of courtship, Dr. Harry C. Oberholser (1896b) says:

In spring the drumming of the yellow-bellied sapsucker may usually be easily recognized by the following peculiarities. Four or five taps given in quick succession are followed by a short pause, this being soon succeeded by two short quick taps; then another pause, and two more taps in somewhat less rapid succession than the first; followed by yet another pause, and two additional taps still a little slower. This is sometimes slightly varied with regard to the number of taps; and occasionally also the latter part consists only of single quick taps with an increasing interval toward the last.

The difference between the tapping of the sapsucker and of the hairy and the downy woodpecker is described in the life history of the latter bird. Wendell Taber told Mr. Bent that he succeeded in calling up three of these birds by imitating their drumming with a fountain pen on a dead tree; one of them alighted on the tree on which he was drumming.

Nesting.—William Brewster (1876a), writing of the nesting of the sapsucker at Umbagog Lake, Maine, says:

They arrive from the South, where they spend the winter, from the middle to the last of April, and, pairing being soon effected, commence at once the excavation of their nests. The trees usually selected are large dead birches, and a decided preference is manifested for the vicinity of water, though some nests occur on high ground in the interior of the woods, but never so abundantly there as along the margin of rivers and lakes. Both sexes work alternately, relieving each other at frequent intervals, the bird not employed usually clinging near the hole and encouraging its toiling mate, by an occasional low cry. With the deepening of the hole arises the necessity for increased labor, as the rapidly accumulating debris must be removed, and the bird now appears at frequent intervals at the entrance, and, dropping its mouthful of chips, returns to its work. A week or more is occupied in the completion of the nest, the time varying considerably with the relative hardness of the wood. A small quantity of the finer chips are left at the bottom to serve as a bed for the eggs. * * * The labor of incubation, like all other duties, is shared equally by the two sexes. * * *

All nests examined upon this occasion [an occasion when he found half a dozen nests] were of uniform gourd-like shape, with the sides very smoothly and evenly chiselled. They averaged about fourteen inches in depth by five in diameter at the widest point, while the diameter of the exterior hole varied from 1.25 to 1.60 inches. So small, indeed, was this entrance in proportion to the size of the bird, that in many cases they were obliged to struggle violently for several seconds in either going out or in. The nests in most instances were very easily discovered, as the bird was almost always in the immediate vicinity, and if the tree was approached would fly to the hole and utter a few low calls, which would bring out its sitting mate, when both would pass to and from the spot, emitting notes of anxiety and alarm. The bird not employed in incubation has also a peculiar habit of clinging to the trunk just below the hole, in a perfectly motionless and strikingly pensive attitude, apparently looking in, though from the conformation of the interior it would be impossible for it to see its mate or eggs. In this position it will remain without moving for many minutes at a time.

Henry Mousley (1916) states that the bird “often nests year after year in the same tree (but not necessarily in the same hole) the favourite ones here [Hatley, Quebec] being elm, poplar, and butternut. * * * Of two nests examined the average dimensions are as follows, viz.: entrance hole 1⅜ inches in diameter, extreme depth 10¾ inches, and width 2⅞ inches.”

Philipp and Bowdish (1917) say of the nesting site in New Brunswick: “The favorite situation was the dead heart of a live poplar, most often on the bank of a stream, and facing same, but some nests were in totally dead trees, of different kinds. They ranged from eight to forty feet from ground.”

Bendire (1895) says that the birds “are devoted parents, and when incubation is somewhat advanced, or the young have been recently hatched, the bird on the nest is loath to leave it, and will sometimes allow itself to be captured rather than to desert its treasures.”

Eggs.—[Author’s note: The yellow-bellied sapsucker lays four to seven eggs to a set, though five or six eggs are more commonly found. They vary from ovate to elliptical-ovate and sometimes to elliptical-oval. The shell is smooth and either dull or moderately glossy. They are pure white, like all woodpeckers’ eggs. The measurements of 52 eggs average 22.44 by 16.92 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 24.9 by 17.0, 23.8 by 18.0, 20.57 by 16.26, and 22.1 by 15.5 millimeters.]

Young.—As in the case of most nestling birds reared in a hole in a tree, little is known of the young sapsuckers while they are in the nest.

Frank Bolles (1892) speaks of “a nest filled with noisy fledglings whose squealing sounded afar in the otherwise silent woods. * * * The parent birds came frequently to the tree, and their arrival was always greeted by more vigorous crying from the young.”

William Brewster (1876a), in his study of the bird at Umbagog Lake, Maine, says: “The young leave the nest in July, and for a long time the brood remains together, being still fed by the parents. They are very playful, sporting about the tree-trunks and chasing one another continually.”

Frank Bolles (1892) has given a very interesting, detailed account of rearing three nestlings, about to be fledged, over a period of three and a half months. The three birds were dissimilar enough in coloring to be distinguished from one another; they proved to be two males and one female; and they soon developed marked differences in conduct and personality. Mr. Bolles at first kept them in a large cage in which they had ample space to climb about and later allowed them to fly around a room. They became very tame, letting him handle them freely. They subsisted almost entirely on maple syrup and water in equal parts, fed by hand at first, but in a few days they drank readily from a basin. They caught a few flies and ate some other insects that entered the cage, attracted by the syrup. Mr. Bolles says, however, that “the number of insects caught by them in this way was small, and I do not think amounted at any time to ten percent of their food.”

The birds were lively and apparently in perfect health from the time they were captured, July 7, until October 11, when one of them, the female, began to droop. Two days later she had a convulsion in the morning and died in the afternoon. Autopsy showed that her body was well nourished and that the organs were apparently normal except the liver, which was “very large, deeply bile-stained, and very soft.”

A week later the other two birds died after exhibiting the same symptoms as the first bird. The Department of Agriculture examined the body of one of these birds and reported enlargement and fatty degeneration of the liver.

Mr. Bolles remarks that “the most probable cause of this enlargement of the liver, which seems to have been the reason for the death of the three sapsuckers, was an undue proportion of sugar in their diet. In a wild state they would have eaten insects every day and kept their stomachs well filled with the chitinous parts of acid insects. Under restraint they secured fewer and fewer insects, until during the last few weeks of their lives, they had practically no solid food of any kind.”

Summarizing his observations, he says:

From these experiments I draw the following conclusions: (1), that the yellow-bellied woodpecker may be successfully kept in captivity for a period corresponding to that during which as a resident bird he taps trees for their sap, sustained during this time upon a diet of which from 90 to 100 per cent is diluted maple syrup; (2), that this fact affords evidence of an extremely strong character, in confirmation and support of the theory that when the yellow-bellied woodpecker taps trees for their sap he uses the sap as his principal article of food, and not primarily as a bait to attract insects.

Winton Weydemeyer (1926) in Montana “observed a pair of red-naped sapsuckers * * * gathering sap to feed their young in the nest. A regular tree-route, followed alternately by the male and female, included a quaking aspen, a larger alder, and a large willow, in which borings had been made. The birds flew directly from the nest to the aspen, and gathered the sap that had accumulated since the last visit; then flew to the alder and to the willow, repeating the process; and finally flew back to the nest, without hunting for insects. Occasionally the male would vary the process by catching a few flies from the air, eating some and carrying some to the nest.”

Forbush (1927) gives the incubation period of the yellow-bellied sapsucker as “probably about 14 days.”

A. Dawes DuBois furnishes the following note: “Yellow-bellied sapsuckers were observed feeding young in a nest, in Hennepin County, Minn., on July 5, 1937. The nest was about 25 feet above ground in a partially dead tree at edge of willow-and-alder thicket adjoining woods. Both parents were bringing food. The squeaky note of the young was repeated with such regularity (about four times a second) as to indicate that only one nestling was uttering it. When the nestling was being fed at the entrance, by the poking method, these notes went up to a higher pitch, and were sometimes choked off almost to inaudibility.

“Two days later, the parents were still feeding very frequently. The male, who on the first day had been seen to bring a bright red berry about the size of a pea, again brought a bit of small red fruit. On one occasion, when the parents were away, the nestling put its head out of the hole; but it did not do so when being fed. In general, alarm calls of the parents had little if any effect upon the squeaking of the nestling, though at one time, July 7, the squeaking seemed to cease for a short interval when the parent gave the alarm notes. For the most part the series of squeaky notes is continuous. It was by hearing these sounds that this nest was discovered.”

Plumages.—[Author’s note: The young sapsucker is hatched naked, as is the case with other woodpeckers, but the juvenal plumage is acquired before the young bird leaves the nest. The sexes are alike in the juvenal plumage. A young bird, not fully grown and probably not long out of the nest, taken June 25, has the black crown largely concealed by the long brownish tips of the feathers, “ochraceous-tawny” to “buckthorn brown”; each of the black feathers of the back has a large terminal spot of grayish white, or yellowish white, producing a boldly spotted pattern; the nape and sides of the neck have smaller spots of the same color; the wings and tail are as in the adult-fall plumage; the chin and upper throat are dull white or pale buffy brownish; the lower throat and chest are pale brownish, broken by crescentic bars of dusky; and the center of the breast and the abdomen are pale yellow or yellowish white. Changes soon begin to take place, at irregular intervals, during which the sexes begin to differentiate. Young males may begin to show traces of red in the throat patch as early as July; and in August some may have the crown largely crimson; the black patch on the chest does not usually appear until much of the red has been assumed, but some birds show considerable of both red and black before the end of August. Other young males may not acquire much red before the end of September. Progress toward maturity continues all through fall, winter, and early spring by protracted partial molts; probably most individuals acquire the fully adult plumage by early spring, but I have seen birds that had not fully completed this prenuptial molt by the end of April.

Young females follow the same sequence of molts but are somewhat later in developing the red crown, which apparently is not acquired until October or later. The adult body plumage of both sexes is acquired during winter and early spring. Adults have a partial prenuptial molt about the head and throat early in spring and a complete molt late in summer and fall. In fresh fall plumage, the lighter markings are more or less suffused with yellowish or buffy tints, and the belly is deeper yellow.]

Food.—W. L. McAtee (1911) learned by stomach examinations that the yellow-bellied sapsucker consumed cambium and bast averaging 16.71 percent of its diet. He continues:

It must be noted also that cambium is a very delicate, perishable material, at certain times no more than a jelly, and thus never receives a percentage valuation in examinations of long-preserved stomachs corresponding to its bulk when first swallowed. Neither do we get any record of the sap consumed by these birds [the three species of sapsucker] and they are inordinate tipplers. Hence the value of the percentages cited lies not so much in their accuracy as to the quantity of cambium eaten as in the fact that they indicate a steady consumption of this important substance. There is no doubt that cambium, bast, and sap are depended upon by sapsuckers as stable diet.

We may get some idea of the amount of sap consumed by the bird from Frank Bolles’ (1892) record of his three young captive sapsuckers. He says: “Ordinarily they disposed of eight teaspoonfuls [of diluted syrup] each during the twenty-four hours. Part of this evaporated, and part was probably secured by black ants which visited the cage by night.”

Bolles (1891), describing the method of feeding of birds in the wild, says: “The dipping was done regularly and rather quickly, often two or three times in each hole. The sap glistened on the bill as it was withdrawn. I could sometimes see the tongue move. The bill was directed towards the lower, inner part of the drill, which, as I found by examination, was cut so as to hold the sap.”

This is the common method of feeding, but sometimes, when two or more holes have coalesced into a vertical groove, the bird will run its bill upward along the edge of the wound, sipping the sap much as we might, with our finger, wipe off a drop running down from a pitcher’s lip.

McAtee (1911) states that “about four-fifths of the insect food of the three species of sapsuckers consists of ants, the eating of which may be reckoned slightly in the birds’ favor. The remainder of the food is made up of beetles, wasps, and a great variety of other insects, including, however, practically no wood-boring larvae or other special enemies of trees. The birds’ vegetable food can not be cited in their behalf, as it consists almost entirely of wild fruits, which are of no importance, and of cambium, the securing of which results in serious damage.”

F. E. L. Beal (1895) mentions, as articles in the sapsucker’s diet, the berries of dogwood, black alder, Virginia creeper, and wild black cherries. Winfrid A. Stearns (1883) says: “Nuts, berries, and other fruits vary its fare; and to procure these it may often be seen creeping and hanging in the strangest attitudes among the terminal twigs of trees, so slender that they bend with the weight of the bird.” Audubon (1842), in his plate of the sapsucker, gives an animated picture of the bird thus engaged.

Brewster (1876a) shows the bird as an expert flycatcher. “From an humble delver after worms and larvae, it rises to the proud independence of a Flycatcher, taking its prey on wing as unerringly as the best marksman of them all. From its perch on the spire of some tall stub it makes a succession of rapid sorties after its abundant victims and then flies off to its nest with bill and mouth crammed full of insects, principally large Diptera.”

Behavior.—The sapsucker, a bird of wide distribution and in some parts of its range the commonest woodpecker, has come to be regarded with disfavor by man, who accuses it of harming the trees it drills to obtain its food. Man accuses the bird of weakening trees by drawing away their life-blood and of killing many by girdling them with multiple punctures, and he blames the bird for marring the beauty of trunk and limb by pitting and scarring them.

A study of the habits of the sapsucker shows that its work on the trees varies with the season and, on the Atlantic coast, is spread over a territory 3,000 miles long or more. During the migrations, northward and southward, when the birds are scattered and on the move, comparatively little harm is done. Here and there a limb may be killed—either girdled or opened so that infection enters—and rarely a tree may die, but the chief effect is an esthetic one, the scarring of the bark with pits, notably in orchards where it is a matter of common observation that most of the pitted trees are in perfect health. On their breeding ground and in their winter quarters, however, where the birds are concentrated and remain in one locality for a considerable time, the effect is more serious. In the Southern States especially, the lumber industry suffers material financial loss due to the fact that deep in the wood cut from trees on which sapsuckers have worked extensively, when the trees were small, the grain is distorted and made unsightly by the scars of the wounds inflicted by the birds years before.

From an exhaustive study of the economic status of the woodpeckers by W. L. McAtee (1911), the salient points in reference to the yellow-bellied sapsucker are quoted below:

The results of sapsucker attacks on trees are so uniform and characteristic as to be distinguished easily from the work of other woodpeckers. Sapsucker holes are drilled clear through the bark and cambium and often into the wood. They vary in outline from circular to squarish elliptical, in the latter case usually having the longer diameter across the limb or trunk. Generally they are arranged in rings or partial rings around the trunk, but they often fall into vertical series. Deeply-cut holes arranged with such regularity are made only by sapsuckers.

After the original pattern of holes is completed, the sapsuckers often continue their work, taking out the bark between holes until sometimes large areas are cleanly removed. This often occurs on small limbs or trunks, where long strips of bark up and down the tree are removed, leaving narrow strings between. This effect is also produced by continually enlarging single punctures by excavating at the upper end, * * * which is done to secure fresh inner bark and a constant supply of sap. Occasionally, after a tree has been checkered or grooved after the above-described systematic methods, it may be barked indiscriminately, leaving only ragged patches of bark. * * * Even in such cases, however, traces of the regularly arranged punctures are likely to remain, and there is no difficulty in recognizing the work as that of sapsuckers, for no other woodpecker makes anything like it on sound, living trees.

All holes, grooves, or irregular openings made by sapsuckers penetrate at least to the outermost layer of sapwood or nongrowing part of the tree. This results in the removal of the exterior rough bark, the delicate inner bark or bast, and the cambium. Since the elaborated sap (upon which the growth of trees depends) is conveyed and stored in these layers, it is evident that sapsuckers attack the trees in a vital part. Each ring of punctures severs at its particular level part of the sap-carrying vessels, another ring made above destroys others, and so the process continues until in extreme cases circulation of elaborated sap stops and the tree dies. When the injury to the vital tissues is not carried so far, only a limb here and there may die, or the tree may only have its vitality lowered for a few years. If the attacks cease, it may completely recover. * * *

Recovery, however, does not mean that the tree has escaped permanent injury. Patches of cambium of varying size may be killed. Growth ceases at these points and the dead and discolored areas are finally covered by wood and bark. Until this process is completed, the tree is disfigured by pits with dead bark and wood at the bottom, and even when completely healed, the spot remains a source of weakness. In fact, all sapsucker pecking is followed by more or less rotting and consequent weakening of the wood, and renders trees more liable to be broken by the wind or other causes.

Sapsucker injuries usually stimulate growth of the wood layers at the points attacked, so that they become much thicker than usual. This results in a slight swelling of the bark, and when the birds reopen the old wounds year after year, as they habitually do, succeeding wood layers make excess growth and in time shelflike girdles develop.

McAtee (1911) gives a long list of trees attacked by the bird. Summarizing, he says: “Condensing the information contained in the foregoing lists, we find that the yellow-bellied sapsucker attacks no fewer than 246 species of native trees and 6 vines, besides 31 kinds of introduced trees. Twenty-nine of these trees and 1 vine are known to be sometimes killed and 28 others are much disfigured or seriously reduced in vitality.”

Of “the effects of sapsucker work on lumber and finished wood products” he says:

Those relations of sapsuckers to trees which are detrimental to man’s interest are by no means confined to the external disfiguration, the weakening, or killing of trees. Indeed in the aggregate sapsuckers inflict much greater financial loss by rendering defective the wood of the far larger number of trees which they work upon moderately but do not kill. Blemishes, reducing the value, appear in the lumber from such trees and in the various articles into which it is manufactured.

These defects consist of distortion of the grain, formation of knotty growths and cavities in the wood, extensive staining, fat streaks, resin deposits, and other blemishes. All of them result from injuries to the cambium, their variety being due to the differences in the healing. Besides blemishes, ornamental effects are sometimes produced during the healing of sapsucker wounds, such as small sound stains, curly grain, and a form of bird’s-eye.

McAtee (1911) estimates that “the annual loss for the whole United States [from the impairment of lumber] is more than a million and a quarter dollars.” He continues: “Sapsuckers do not prey upon any especially destructive insects and do comparatively little to offset the damage they inflict. Hence the yellow-bellied sapsucker * * * must be included in the class of injurious species.”

The situation is quite different on the breeding ground. Here the birds resort to a group of trees, and confine their feeding activities almost exclusively to them. Frank Bolles (1891), in his study of the bird in the region about Mount Chocorua, N. H., terms these stations “orchards.” He describes one of them as consisting “of about a dozen canoe birches and red maples, most of which were dead, some decayed and fallen. The tree most recently tapped was a red maple about forty feet high and two feet through at the butt.” Of another “orchard,” half a mile away, he says: “The tree in use last year was nearly dead. Two neighboring birches showing scars of earlier years were quite dead. All stood on the crest of a kame. About three rods along the ridge to the eastward a red oak and two or three canoe birches were in use by the birds.” This report shows that sapsuckers undoubtedly cause the death of many trees as they return to their “orchards” year after year, but most of these trees are of small value, especially in the heavily forested regions where the birds commonly breed.

Bolles (1891) also notes the association of the sapsuckers with the ruby-throated hummingbirds, which were attracted to the pits by the running sap. In the main, hosts and guests got along well enough together, although attacks occurred on both sides from time to time. He says: “My notes refer again and again to the spiteful treatment of the Hummers at Orchard No. 1. On the other hand at Orchard No. 2 they say ‘Male and young one dipping. Hummer comes in and dips several times between them and they offer no objection.’”

Major Bendire (1895), half in jest, we may presume, brings an accusation of inebriety against the sapsucker in these words:

That it should be fond of the sweet sap of trees does not surprise me, as this contains considerable nourishment, and likewise attracts a good many insects, which the birds eat; but it is not so easy to account for its especial predilection for the sap of the mountain ash, which has a decidedly bitter taste, and I believe possesses intoxicating properties, unless it be taken for the latter purpose; and the fact that after drinking freely of the sap of this tree it may often be seen clinging to the trunk for hours at a time, as if stupefied, seems to confirm this view. It is well known that some of our birds indulge in such disreputable practices, and possibly this species must be included in the number, as there are sots among birds as well as among the genus Homo.

Voice.—Just as the sapsucker in its behavior is conspicuous, almost boisterous, at one season of the year and retiring and unobtrusive at another, in the same way it is very noisy in spring and the early part of the nesting period and comparatively silent afterward.

Dr. C. Hart Merriam (1879) speaks of the bird thus: “In few species can the date of arrival, in spring, be ascertained with such precision as in the bird now under consideration; for, no sooner are they here, and recovered from the fatigue of their northward journey, than the country fairly resounds with their cries and drumming. * * * Noisy, rollicking fellows, they are always chasing one another among the trees, screaming meanwhile at the top of their voices, and when three or four vociferous males alight on the same tree, as often happens, their boisterous cries are truly astonishing.”

William Brewster (1876a) mentions a “peculiar snarling cry” used as an alarm note, and of a pair at the nest he says:

Watching once a nest for an hour or two, I remarked that the birds relieved each other in the labors of incubation at intervals averaging about half an hour each. The one that had been absent would alight just below the hole, and, uttering a low yew-ick, yew-ick, its mate would appear from within, when, after the interchange of a few notes of endearment, the sitting bird would fly off and the other instantly enter the hole. * * *

Both young and old utter most frequently a low snarling cry that bears no very distant resemblance to the mew of the Catbird. The adults have also two other notes—one, already spoken of, when the opposite sexes meet; the other a clear, ringing cleur, repeated five or six times in succession, and heard, I think, only in the spring.

Of the voice of the sapsucker, Bendire (1895) says: “Its ordinary call note is a whining ‘whäee,’ and it utters a number of other sounds, some of these resembling the calls of the Blue Jay, and others those of the Red-shouldered Hawk. During the mating season, when the sexes are chasing each other, a series of notes like ‘hoih-hoih,’ a number of times repeated, are frequently heard. Although generally disposed to be more or less noisy, while clinging to their food trees they are always silent as far as my observations go.”

The note mentioned above does resemble the cry of the blue jay somewhat in form, but the notes of the two birds need never be confused. The sapsucker’s may be as long as the blue jay’s, or the caw of a crow; again it may be given as a very short syllable. The note commonly is not nearly so loud as the blue jay’s and the tone of voice is different; it is a complaining whine rather than a boisterous shout.

Another note, a minor note heard only when one is near the bird, is very like the explosive hit of the red-breasted nuthatch—the little conversational note that the nuthatches use as they scramble over the bark, not the nasal toot.

The most remarkable of the sapsucker’s utterances, in that it does not resemble a bird note at all, is a single syllable sounded regularly over and over again—a low-toned tuck, like slow, sharp strokes on a nonresonant branch. This note might sometimes be mistaken for a chipmunk’s pluck, except that it lacks completely any ringing quality of tone.

Field marks.—The colored plates in the illustrated books on ornithology lead one to expect to find the yellow-bellied sapsucker rather a brilliantly colored, conspicuous bird. However, when we meet it in the field, the colors, so bright and sharply outlined in the picture of the bird, are often dimmed by the shadows of limbs and leaves, and as the chief color is of a neutral tint, not unlike the bark of many trees, we may sometimes pass the bird by, unnoticed. Our first impression of the bird, when we catch a glimpse of it, is of a medium-sized woodpecker, dull old-gold in color, and almost without markings. A glass, however, brings out a thin line of white along the length of the closed wing, a red or reddish forehead and fore part of the crown, a black mark across the upper breast, and, if we look very carefully, a yellowish belly.

W. L. McAtee (1911) points out the black mark is characteristic of nearly all sapsuckers, and he links it up pretty successfully with a red forehead. For example, The red-breasted sapsucker lacks the black mark, but has a red head; the flicker, not a sapsucker, has a “black spot on breast, but top of head from bill is not red”; the pileated woodpecker “not a sapsucker. Entire lower parts black.” He continues: “All sapsuckers have yellow bellies, few other woodpeckers have; all sapsuckers have a conspicuous white patch on the upper part of the wing, as seen from the side when clinging to a tree; white wing patches in other woodpeckers are on the middle or lower part of the wings. The yellow-bellied sapsucker of transcontinental range is the only woodpecker having the front of the head (i. e., from bill to crown) red in combination with a black patch on the breast.”

Fall.—Generally when we see the yellow-bellied sapsucker in autumn, during its slow journey toward the Southern States, it is alone. A single bird may settle for two or three days in our dooryard, if there be a tree there to its liking, perching well up in it and rarely moving away. Here it is inconspicuous: its brownish color matches the bark closely; it moves deliberately, as if to avoid notice; by hopping behind a branch it keeps out of sight most of the time; and commonly it is perfectly silent. On occasion it makes use of its whining cry, and if two birds meet they may utter the red-breasted-nuthatch note, but as a rule this woodpecker is one of the quietest of migrants.

If we watch a bird for a time, we see that it is picking at the bark, dislodging bits of it in searching for concealed food. It hops forward, backward, and around the limbs, moving easily, taking rather long, rapid hops, seeming careless of a fall. When investigating crevices and peering under flakes of bark it cranes its neck, turning its head from side to side. The neck then appears constricted, like a pileated woodpecker in miniature.

At other times it may drill holes—even the young birds of the year, which can have had little experience in this kind of work. They drill with a sideways stroke, to one side, then the other, then, perhaps, a stroke straight at the branch. In this manner, before very long, a small area is denuded of bark, the sideways strokes giving it an oval shape with the long axis parallel to the ground. However, at this season, mid-October, in the latitude of Boston, little sap rewards their efforts.

Winter.—Sapsuckers spend the winter mainly in the Southern States, Central America, and on the islands south of North America, but there are a few records indicating that a bird rarely may remain nearly or quite as far north as the southern limit of the breeding range. For example, Fred. H. Kennard (1895) reports finding one in Brookline, Mass., on February 6, 1895. Collected, “he proved to be in fine, fat condition”; and Harriet A. Nye (1918) watched, in Fairfield Center, Maine, a bird throughout the winter of 1911, in which the temperature fell to 32° below zero. Apples formed a considerable part of this bird’s diet, although he often hunted over the branches and trunks of trees. He was last seen April 5 “as sprightly as ever.”

DISTRIBUTION

Range.—North and Central America and the West Indies, casual in Bermuda and Greenland.

Breeding range.—This species breeds north to southeastern Alaska (probably Skagway); southern Mackenzie (Nahanni Mountain, Fort Providence, and Fort Resolution); northern Manitoba (Cochrane River and probably Fort Churchill); Ontario (Lac Seul and probably Moose Factory); Quebec (Montreal, Quebec City, Godbout, Ellis Bay, and probably Eskimo Point); and Newfoundland (Fox Island and Nicholsville). East to Newfoundland (Nicholsville, Deer Lake, and Harrys River); Nova Scotia (Sydney and Halifax); Maine (Bucksport and Livermore Falls); southeastern New Hampshire (Ossipee and Monadnock Mountain); western Massachusetts (Chesterfield); New Jersey (Midvale); and western Virginia (Sounding Knob, Cold Mountain, and White Top Mountain). South to southwestern Virginia (White Top Mountain); northwestern Indiana (Kouts); central Illinois (Peoria); eastern Missouri (St. Louis); Iowa (Keokuk, Grinnell, and Ogden); southeastern South Dakota (Sioux Falls and probably Vermillion); New Mexico (Pot Creek and Diamond Peak); Arizona (Buffalo Creek and Kaibab Plateau); and southern California (San Bernardino Mountains, San Jacinto Mountains, and Mount Pinos). West to California (Mount Pinos, Big Creek, Cisco, Carlotta, and Mount Shasta); western Oregon (Prospect, Elkton, Salem, and Tillamook); Washington (Tacoma and Seattle); British Columbia (Beaver Creek, Alta Lake, and Masset); and southeastern Alaska (Craig, Wrangell, and probably Skagway).

Winter range.—The winter range extends north to southwestern British Columbia (Comox); northeastern Oregon (Haines); central Arizona (Oak Creek); southern New Mexico (Silver City); Kansas (Wichita, Topeka, and Bendena); Missouri (Lexington and Nelson); Illinois (Bernadotte and Mount Carmel); southern Indiana (Vincennes and probably Bloomington); southern Ohio (Hamilton and Hillsboro); northern Maryland (Hagerstown); southeastern Pennsylvania (Edge Hill); and southern New Jersey (Newfield). From this point the species is found in winter south along the Atlantic coast to southern Florida (Miami, Royal Palm Hammock, and Key West); the Bahama Islands (Nassau, Watling Island, and Great Inagua); and the northern Lesser Antilles (St. Croix). South to the Lesser Antilles (St. Croix); rarely Haiti (Gonave Island); and rarely Costa Rica (Coli Blanco and Punta Arenas). From this southwestern point the winter range extends northward along the western coast of Central America (including Baja California) to California; Oregon; rarely Washington; and southwestern British Columbia (probably Barkley Sound and Comox). In the eastern part of the country the species is found irregularly north to southern Wisconsin (Madison); southern Michigan (Ann Arbor and Detroit); southern Ontario (London and Lindsay); southern Vermont (Bennington); and central Maine (Fairfield and Dover).

The range as above outlined covers the entire species, which has been separated into four subspecies or geographic races. The typical form, known as the yellow-bellied sapsucker (S. v. varius), is found during the breeding season over all the northern parts of the range east of Alaska and south to Missouri and the mountains of western Virginia. In winter it is found south to Central America and the West Indies. The red-naped sapsucker (S. v. nuchalis) is found chiefly in the Rocky Mountain region from central British Columbia south (in winter) to Baja California and central Mexico. The northern red-breasted sapsucker (S. v. ruber) breeds from southeastern Alaska south through the mountains to western Oregon and in winter to central California. The southern red-breasted sapsucker (S. v. daggetti) is confined to the mountains of California and northern Baja California.

Spring migration.—Early dates of spring arrival are: Quebec—Montreal, March 25; Westmount, March 30. New Brunswick—Scotch Lake, April 12; St. John, April 22. Nova Scotia—Wolfville, April 30. Northern Michigan—Blaney, April 2; Sault Ste. Marie, April 10; Houghton, April 24. Minnesota—Elk River, March 26; Minneapolis, March 29. Nebraska—Omaha, April 14. South Dakota—Faulkton, April 15. North Dakota—Fargo, April 15. Manitoba—Aweme, March 31; Margaret, April 17. Saskatchewan—Indian Head, April 4. Colorado—Estes Park, April 27. Wyoming—Yellowstone Park, May 12. Montana—Columbia Falls, April 13. Alberta—Stony Plain, April 1; Edmonton, May 2. Mackenzie—Fort Simpson, May 11. Alaska—Chilkat River, April 12; Admiralty Island, April 17; Forrester Island, May 6.

Fall migration.—Late dates of fall departure are: Alberta—Glenevis, September 24. Montana—Fortine, September 20; Kalispell, October 1. Wyoming—Yellowstone Park, October 2. Colorado—De Beque, October 1; Denver, October 8; Walden, October 16. Saskatchewan—Indian Head, September 25. Manitoba—Shoal Lake, September 30; Treesbank, October 14; Margaret, October 24. North Dakota—Rice Lake, October 1; Fargo, October 2. South Dakota—Yankton, October 5; Faulkton, October 20. Nebraska—Monroe Canyon, Sioux County, October 4. Minnesota—Elk River, October 15; Lanesboro, October 19. Northern Michigan—Blaney, October 1; Houghton, October 2; Sault Ste. Marie, October 22. Nova Scotia—Sable Island, October 9. New Brunswick—Scotch Lake, November 4. Quebec—Montreal, October 1; Quebec City, October 2.

Casual records.—According to Reid (1884) several specimens of this species were taken in Bermuda during the period 1847-1850 when it bred in that area. He also noted it in 1875. A specimen was found dead at Julianshaab, Greenland, in July 1845; another was obtained in that general region about 1858; and an adult female was collected at Loup Bay, Labrador, on May 5, 1899.

• Egg dates.—Alberta: 19 records, May 20 to June 18; 10 records, May 30 to June 11, indicating the height of the season.
• California: 13 records, May 12 to June 21; 7 records, May 30 to June 9.
• Colorado: 19 records, May 27 to June 15; 10 records, June 4 to 12.
• Illinois: 5 records, April 20 to June 3.
• Nova Scotia: 14 records, May 28 to June 15; 7 records, June 5 to 10.
• Oregon: 24 records, May 12 to June 12; 12 records, May 25 to June 2.

SPHYRAPICUS VARIUS NUCHALIS Baird

RED-NAPED SAPSUCKER

HABITS

The western race of the eastern yellow-bellied sapsucker occupies an extensive range in the general region of the Rocky Mountains, chiefly east of the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Ranges, from central British Columbia and Alberta to western Texas and Arizona.

Ridgway (1914) gives a full description of this form, which is worth quoting in view of his remarks as to its status; he describes it as—

Similar to S. v. varius, but with much less white on back, this forming two definite but broken stripes, converging posteriorly; nape always with more or less of red, under parts less strongly tinged with yellow, and wing and tail averaging decidedly longer; adult male with red of throat more extended, both laterally and posteriorly, covering malar region (except anterior portion), where meeting white sub-auricular stripe; adult female with at least lower half of throat red (sometimes whole throat red, only the chin being white); young much darker above than corresponding stage of S. v. varius, the pileum dark sooty slate, white markings on back less brownish, and under parts much less yellowish, the chest and foreneck brownish gray or grayish brown (instead of buffy brown), and usually less distinctly barred or lunulated with dusky.

On account of the conspicuous difference in coloration of the young, definite difference in color pattern of back, head, and neck in adults, and comparative rarity of intermediate specimens (which are far less common, relatively, than in the case of Colaptes), I believe that it would be better to consider this form as specifically distinct from S. varius. It is true that specimens do occur that are intermediate between S. nuchalis and S. varius, as well as between the former and if S. ruber; but they may be (and I believe they are) hybrids; certainly there is no more reason for not considering them as such than in the case of Colaptes; and if S. nuchalis is to be considered as merely a subspecies of S. varius then, most certainly, must S. ruber also.

Mr. Ridgway (1877) says of its haunts:

Throughout the country between the Sierra Nevada and the Rocky Mountains, the red-naped woodpecker is a common species in suitable localities. Its favorite summer-haunts are the groves of large aspens near the head of the upper cañons, high up in the mountains, and for this reason we found it more abundant in the Wahsatch and Uintah region than elsewhere; indeed, but a single individual was observed on the Sierra Nevada, and this one was obtained on the eastern slope of the range, near Carson City. It was very rare throughout western Nevada, but became abundant as we approached the higher mountains in the eastern portion of the State. Among the aspen groves in Parley’s Park, as well as in similar places throughout that portion of the country, it was by far the most abundant of the Woodpeckers; and it seemed to be as strictly confined to the aspens as S. thyroideus was to the pines.

The Weydemeyers (1928) say that, in northwestern Montana, “it occurs most abundantly and typically in mixed broad-leaf and conifer associations along streams, where it nests regularly. It ranges less commonly into virgin forests of fir, larch, yellow pine, and hemlock (Tsuga heterophylla) in the valleys; and into arborvitae, lodgepole pine, and spruce woods of the foothills. Occasional birds are seen in alpine fir and spruce woods upward to the lower borders of the Hudsonian zone.”

Courtship.—M. P. Skinner says in his notes: “On May 13, 1915, I saw a red-naped sapsucker drumming on a hollow, dead lodgepole pine; soon he flew to the top of another pine, where his mate was, and the two began bobbing and curtsying in true cake-walk fashion much like flickers, except that these sapsuckers were on a vertical stub. There was no movement of the feet, but the body was bent from side to side, and there was a constant ‘juggling’ motion. The head was tilted back and the bill pointed up at an angle of sixty degrees, with neck outstretched. The neck, head, and bill were in constant motion. That of the bill reminded me of a musical director’s baton.”

Nesting.—The Weydemeyers (1928) say of its nesting habits: “As elsewhere in the state, this bird in Lincoln County nests most commonly in live aspens. Our records for this area include four nests in live aspens, one in a live larch, and one in a dead Engelmann spruce. These nests were all in the Transition zone, near streams, Three of the nests in aspens were in a single tree, in successive years. Nest-hole preparation usually commences immediately upon the arrival of the birds in the spring, about April 20.”

Major Bendire (1895) gives an attractive account of finding a nest of this woodpecker in a live aspen, in a small grove of these trees, near Camp Harney, Oregon, on June 12, 1877: “Their nesting site was directly over my head, about 20 feet from the ground. * * * The entrance to the excavation was exceedingly small, not over 1¼ inches in diameter, about 8 inches deep, and about 4 inches wide at the bottom. It contained three nearly fresh eggs, lying partly embedded in a layer of fine chips.”

He quotes the following observations of Denis Gale:

My observations have been that this subspecies invariably selects for its nesting site a living aspen tree. I have never met with it in any other. This tree favors the mountain gulches and low, sheltered hillsides, at an altitude of from 7,000 to 10,000 feet. Above this point they do not attain sufficient size, and are mostly dwarfed and scrubby. Here in Colorado Sphyrapicus varius nuchalis is seldom found above 9,000 feet or much below 8,000 feet. The aspen tree is short lived, and ere much of a growth is attained, a cross section, in the majority of instances, will show a discolored center of incipient decay, involving half or two-thirds of its entire diameter, with a sound, white sap zone on the outer circumference, next to the bark. This sound, healthy zone nourishes the tree until the decayed core discovers itself in some withered limbs, and frequently the top of the tree manifests the canker.

Such trees the Red-naped Sapsucker selects for its nesting site, and with great perseverance chisels through this tough, sound zone, from 1 to 1½ inches in thickness, commencing with a very small hole and gradually extending its circumference with each stage of the deepening process, working from the lowest center out, till the exact circumference of the intended aperture of entrance is attained. In thus radiating in circles from the central point the minute chips are chiseled out with considerable ease. This mode of working is observed until the tough zone is worked through; what remains then is comparatively easy work; the soft, soggy, lifeless inside is worked into and downward with greater facility, and a roomy, gourd-shaped excavation quickly follows, the female doing the excavating from beginning to end, and, according to exigencies, completes it in from six to ten days. * * *

Sphyrapicus varius nuchalis usually insists upon a new excavation each year. The height of the nesting sites from the ground varies from 5 to 30 feet; the full set of eggs is four or five in number; sometimes a smaller number of eggs mark a full set, presumably the nest of one of last year’s birds. Fresh eggs may be looked for in Colorado from June 1 to 15, and should the first set be taken, a second one may generally be found from ten to fifteen days later; and, as a rule, the second nesting site will not be greatly distant from the first one. Several nests of this species may be found within a short distance of each other in the same aspen grove.

Eggs.—Major Bendire (1895) says of the eggs: “The number of eggs to a set varies from three to six, usually four or five; these are mostly ovate in shape, a few are more elliptical ovate; they are pure white in color; the shell is fine grained and moderately glossy.” The measurements of 40 eggs average 22.89 by 17.28 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 24.38 by 16.76, 23.60 by 18.50, 20.83 by 16.76, and 21.34 by 16.26 millimeters.

Young.—Major Bendire (1895) says: “I believe that both sexes assist in the labor of excavating the nesting site, the female appearing to do the greater part of the work, however, which is frequently very laborious, and that the male also shares the duties of incubation, which lasts about fourteen days.”

Food.—Again, he writes: “Its general habits are similar to those of the preceding species [yellow-bellied sapsucker], and in the fruit-growing sections within its range, in southern Utah, for instance, it is said to do considerable damage to the orchards in the early spring and again in the fall, tapping the peach and apple trees for sap in the same manner as Sphyrapicus varius does in the East. Its principal food consists of small beetles, spiders, grasshoppers, ants, and such larvæ as are to be found under the loose bark of trees, as well as wild berries of different kinds.”

W. L. McAtee (1911) gives a long list of trees that are attacked by this species of sapsucker, among which this western race is charged with doing considerable damage to many western trees, such as various pines, spruces, hemlocks, firs, redwood, cedars, cypresses, junipers, cottonwoods, aspens, willows, bayberry, walnuts, hophornbeam, white alder, oaks, laurels, sycamores, mahoganies, pears, apples, cherries, mesquite, ironwood, maples, Ceanothus, Fremontia, western dogwood, madrona, buckthorn, ashes, and probably others.

Dr. Joseph Grinnell (1914) says, referring to the Colorado Valley, where this sapsucker was evidently wintering among the willow thickets: “Willows were the trees attacked by this woodpecker; but in one case a single large mesquite, and the only one of many in the vicinity, had been selected for bleeding, and its main trunk and larger branches were plentifully bored. I visited this tree many times during the space of three days, March 2 to 4, opposite The Needles, and invariably found a sapsucker working about the borings. I shot two of the birds at this mesquite, and there was still one there the last time I visited the tree, although I had never seen but one at a time there.”

W. L. Dawson (1923) remarks: “In lieu of maple sap the western bird makes heavy requisition on the fresh-flowing pitch of pine and fir trees. As for cambium, that of the aspen (Populus tremuloides) has marked preference, and the summer range of the bird, so far as it goes, is practically controlled by the occurrence of the tree. Inasmuch as this tree is short-lived and of slight economic importance, the depredations of the bark-eaters are not seriously felt.”

Mr. Skinner says, in his Yellowstone Park notes: “I have seen the red-naped sapsucker pick and hammer on dead aspens and on the trunks of lodgepole pine for insects. On June 28, 1917, I saw one make frequent flycatcher-like sallies from an aspen out into the open.”

Behavior.—John H. Flanagan (1911) witnessed a rather remarkable performance by a red-naped sapsucker, such as I had not seen recorded elsewhere. He had chopped out a nest containing two fresh eggs and was intending to leave them for a possible addition to the set, as he had done successfully before, when one of the birds, “both of which remained in sight, flew to the tree, perched a moment upon the edge of the cut hole, then went in, and shortly reappeared with one of the eggs in its beak. It flew to a nearby stub, not more than forty feet from where” he “was sitting, calmly devoured the egg and dropped the empty shell.”

Winter.—Apparently the fall migration of this woodpecker consists largely of a withdrawal from the high altitudes, in which it breeds, to winter resorts in the lowlands. Major Bendire (1895) says: “During the winter months, I have occasionally observed a red-naped sapsucker in the Harney Valley, in Oregon, busily engaged in hunting for food among the willow thickets found growing along the banks of the small streams in that sagebrush-covered region, often long distances away from timber of any size.”

Dr. Grinnell (1914) noted it, as a winter visitant, among the willows and mesquites in the lower Colorado Valley. And M. French Gilman (1915), referring to the Arizona lowlands, says: “The red-naped sapsucker (Sphyrapicus varius nuchalis) is a winter visitant along the Gila River, and while not to be called abundant, is frequently noticed. I have seen individuals from October 6 to as late as April 17, and in all the months between these two dates. Once I saw three in one mesquite tree. Signs of their work are frequently present on cottonwood and willow trees and occasionally on an Arizona ash. If there are any almond trees in the country they are sure to be attacked, as they are favorites with these birds. Only once or twice have I seen mesquite trees attacked.”

SPHYRAPICUS VARIUS DAGGETTI Grinnell

SOUTHERN RED-BREASTED SAPSUCKER

HABITS

The above name was applied to this sapsucker by Dr. Joseph Grinnell (1901) and was characterized by him as smaller and paler than the northern race and with a maximum extent of white markings. It is evidently a well-marked race. But whether the red-breasted sapsucker should be considered a subspecies of the yellow-bellied sapsucker seems to me to be a decidedly open question, on which authorities seem to have differed, or to have changed their minds. In support of his views, Dr. Grinnell (1901) says: “I have examined a number of skins of the nuchalis type, and others approaching ruber in almost every degree, and I am certain that there is a continuous intergradation geographically between the eastern S. varius and ruber of the Pacific Coast. The intermediates do not appear to be the result of ‘hybridization’ and the case does not seem to be at all parallel to that of Colaptes auratus and C. cafer. Therefore I see no reason why the Red-breasted Sapsucker is of more than subspecific rank.”

It is interesting to note that Ridgway used the name Sphyrapicus varius ruber in 1872 and again in 1874 (Ridgway, 1914, in synonymy), but 40 years later (1914) he gave the red-breasted sapsucker full specific rank, apparently having changed his mind. And, in the same work, in a footnote under the red-naped sapsucker, referring to the intergrades mentioned by Dr. Grinnell, he says: “But they may be (and I believe are) hybrids; certainly there is no more reason for not considering them as such than in the case of Colaptes.”

Certainly the red-breasted sapsucker and the yellow-bellied sapsucker are as much unlike in appearance as the two flickers; and the hybrid flickers certainly show “every degree” of intergradation. In the large series of sapsuckers that I have examined, containing 87 typical ruber and 86 typical nuchalis, I was able to find only 8 specimens that could, by any stretch of the imagination, be considered as intermediates; I believe that these intergrading sapsuckers will prove to be relatively less common than are the hybrids between the two flickers.

It is interesting, too, to note that the first three editions of the A. O. U. Check-List, 1886, 1895, and 1910, all gave the red-breasted sapsucker full specific rank, in spite of the fact that Ridgway had called it a subspecies of the yellow-bellied in 1872, and Grinnell had done the same in 1901. But the fourth edition, 1931, adopts the subspecies theory, in spite of Ridgway’s latest decision.

The southern race of the red-breasted sapsucker breeds in the Canadian and Transition Zones in the mountains of California, from the Trinity and Warner Mountains southward to the San Jacinto Mountains. Grinnell and Storer (1924) say that it “is found in the main forest belt during the spring, summer, and fall, but regularly performs an altitudinal migration which carries it down into the tree growths of the western foothills and valleys for the winter months.”

Nesting.—Very little seems to have been published on the nesting habits of this sapsucker, which probably do not differ materially from those of its northern relative, about which more seems to be known. Wright M. Pierce (1916) located one of its nests in the San Bernardino Mountains, on June 26, of which he says: “The cavity was in the dead top of a large live silver fir about forty-five feet up. The cavity had a small opening and was only 5 or 6 inches deep; diameter, inside, 1½ or 2 inches. The nest held two large young and one smaller dead one. It was hard to see how more than one bird could survive in such a small space, so it was not surprising that the probably weaker bird had apparently been suffocated.”

Eggs.—The red-breasted sapsucker lays usually four or five eggs, sometimes as many as six. Like all woodpeckers’ eggs, they are pure white, usually with very little or no gloss, and they vary from ovate to rounded-ovate. The measurements of 13 eggs average 23.79 by 17.25 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 24.6 by 17.0, 23.81 by 17.86, 22.5 by 17.5, and 24.5 by 16.6 millimeters.

Young.—Incubation is said to last about 14 days; this duty and the care of the young is shared by both parents. Mrs. Irene G. Wheelock (1904) says of a nest that she watched: “Incubation began May 30, and lasted fifteen days. The young were fed by regurgitation for the first two weeks. * * *

“The young sapsuckers left the nest on the seventh of July, and clung to the nest tree for three days. Here they were initiated by both parents into the mysteries of sap-sucking. A hole having been bored in front of each, with grotesque earnestness the mother watched the attempt to drink the sweet syrup. During this time both insects and berries were brought to them by the adults, in one hour one youngster devouring twelve insects that looked like dragonflies.”

Mrs. Florence M. Bailey (1902) writes:

The last week in July at Donner Lake we found a family of dull colored young going about with their mother, a handsome old bird with dark red head and breast. They flew around in a poplar grove for a while, and then gathered in a clump of willows, where four young clung to the branches and devoted themselves to eating sap. The old bird flew about among them and seemingly cut and scraped off the bark for them, at the same time apparently trying to teach them to eat the sap for themselves; for though she would feed them at other times she refused to feed them there, and apparently watched carefully to see if they knew enough to drink the sap. When the meal was finally over and the birds had flown, we examined the branch and found that lengthwise strips of bark had been cut off, leaving narrow strips like fiddle-strings between. At the freshly cut places the sap exuded as sweet as sugar, ready for the birds to suck.

Plumages.—Like other young sapsuckers, the young of this species are hatched naked, but the juvenal plumage is acquired before they leave the nest. In the juvenal plumage, in which the sexes are alike, the wings and tail are essentially as in the adult; the head and neck, except for the white stripe below the eye, are dark grayish sooty, though the forehead and crown are usually more or less tinged with dull red; the sides and flanks are more or less barred with dull gray and white; and the abdomen is dull yellowish white.

By the last of July, or first of August, the molt into the first winter plumage begins, with an increasing amount of red coming in on the crown, throat, and breast; at the same time the yellow of the abdomen becomes brighter. This molt continues through fall and is often not complete until November or later. The young bird is now much like the adult. In fall birds, both adult and young, the red of the head and breast, is much duller than in spring, “Brazil red” to “dragon’s blood red” in the fall, and “scarlet red” or bright “scarlet” in the late winter and spring; this is due, of course, to the wearing away of the tips of the feathers; in early summer, just before molting, the red is decidedly brilliant.

Adults have a complete annual molt, beginning sometimes in July and lasting through August or later.

Food.—The food of the red-breasted sapsucker is much like that of its close relatives in the varius group. M. P. Skinner writes to me: “I have found red-breasted sapsuckers drilling on cottonwoods, willows, yellow pines, and lodgepole pines; but all the actual feeding I have seen was on willows. Mr. Michael tells me that these birds work largely on the apple trees that have been planted in various parts of the Yosemite Valley. When a sapsucker is at its wells, it takes a sip now and then, but considerable time is used in watchful guarding, or in driving away intruders or would-be robbers. In the case of such wells as I found on willow stems, I could see no established regularity in arrangement. They looked as if the bark had been irregularly scaled off. In fact, such work may be necessary to secure the inner bark; yet the birds actually took sap at such wells. One had a dozen willow stems on which it drilled and sipped in succession; each one was only a few inches from the next; and the bark of each, both above and below the wells, was worn smooth. This bird went from well to well in regular order, then back to the first well to begin again. Although sap formed the bulk of their food in August, I have seen them also searching the bark for insects during that same month.”

McAtee (1911) lists the following trees that are attacked by the red-breasted sapsucker: Cottonwoods, willows, walnuts, birches, oaks, barberry, sycamore, mountain-ash, pears, apples, peaches, plums, apricot, orange, pepper, and blue gum (Eucalyptus). Emanuel Fritz (1937) has, on several occasions, found this sapsucker attacking redwood trees. “In each instance the individual tree was ‘peppered’ with holes in horizontal rows, from the base to the top. In virgin timber, it is only an occasional tree that is attacked, and one searches in vain for another victim in the general vicinity. * * *