Chapter M: G. Vaiden writes to me that the pileated woodpecker is fairly (2)

_Behavior._--The bird is but little known--surprisingly little, considering how large a bird it is. It is a forest dweller; it lives almost wholly within the canopy of the treetops; it is alert, furtive (almost) as a bear, rather silent in midsummer (the season when city dwellers ordinarily visit the northern forests); and it easily eludes observation. It is not strange then that, its gigantic operations remaining in evidence, the bird itself should in common thought have become a somewhat fabulous creature. Thoreau (1906) never saw it; and this is what he wrote of it in the Moosehead Lake journal under date of July 25, 1857: “Our path up the bank here led by a large dead white pine, in whose trunk near the ground were great square-cornered holes made by the woodpeckers. * * * They were seven or eight inches long by four wide and reached to the heart of the tree through an inch or more of sound wood, and looked like great mortise-holes whose corners had been somewhat worn and rounded by a loose tenon. The tree for some distance was quite honeycombed by them. It suggested woodpeckers on a larger scale than ours, as were the trees and the forest.”

To one who visits its haunts the presence of the pileated woodpecker is immediately made manifest by operations such in magnitude as to have astonished Thoreau. Dead Norway pines may be found, gaunt and bare, their bark split away in plates and lying heaped at the base, and living white pines--young trees, particularly--pierced to the core with deep pyramidal incisions. The freshly cut wood gleams clean, and turpentine in pellucid globules rims the cut and drips downward. Great boles of maples and basswoods stand, furrowed from broken top to base, the ground below littered with splinters, often half a hand’s breadth in extent. The cuts are roughly rectangular in outline. They may be 4, 5, or even 6 or 8 inches wide and are sunk deep into the heart of the tree. They may extend vertically for a few inches or for a foot or more. They may be aligned in vertical rows, and may run together in furrows of several feet in length. Crumbling stumps and moss-covered logs lying on the forest floor will often be found ripped and torn by the woodpecker’s beak.

It is, as has been said, a wary creature, and is not easily stalked. On one occasion, when I had successfully approached a male that was idling in the top of a gaunt chestnut near the nesting tree, I paused, before shifting from an uncomfortable position, until the bird should sidle around the limb. Even so, he was quicker than I; for, before I had completed my movement, he was peering from the opposite side, and, detecting me, was off. Again I came upon a bird--a male--suddenly, in open forest. He did not immediately take wing, but, hitching downward upon the tree trunk, he reached the ground, hopped off, and then flitted away through the undergrowth, so that I scarcely saw him go. And when I came upon him again he repeated the maneuver.

With all their alertness, the birds have a large store of curiosity. Dr. Sutton (1930) has remarked that some individuals will “fly up hastily and boldly upon hearing a commotion in the woods.” They may sometimes be called up by imitating their cry, by clapping together the cupped palms of one’s hands, or by pounding with a billet of wood upon a tree trunk. I was following one morning a forest trail, where I knew a pair of the woodpeckers to be in residence, and had a glimpse, as I walked, of a large bird flying away. There stood against the sky, in the direction of the retreat, the stub of a great treetop. Pausing in my tracks, I waited until, after a few minutes, the suspected woodpecker came leaping up the stub--to have a look at me, as I supposed. In such case, the square shoulders of the bird, the slender white-striped neck, and the hammer head with its pointed scarlet crest are very conspicuous.

Maurice Brooks (1934) has remarked upon the playfulness of the birds when at ease.

For all their alertness, it remains still to be said that on occasion, when the birds are feeding, or when tending a nestful of young, it is possible to approach quietly and to remain watching, while they, unheeding, continue their activities.

It is common to find hairy and downy woodpeckers associated with the pileated, both on nesting grounds and when feeding. There is here, I believe, some measure of commensalism. I have in mind an observation upon a downy on the same dead hemlock tree with a pileated woodpecker. The larger bird was scaling off the bark and feeding; the smaller seemed to be gleaning over areas the pileated had left.

Tucked in the niche formed by a great furrowlike incision in the bole of a basswood tree, and about 10 feet from the ground, I once found a nest of the olive-backed thrush.

When I cut down the stub of which I have spoken, and which contained four old nesting cavities of the pileated woodpecker, I found the lowest, 25 feet from the ground, to be occupied by a family of white-footed mice (_Peromyscus maniculatus_), and I have no doubt that these cavities, after their abandonment by the woodpeckers, are commonly used by flying squirrels, by owls, and by tree-nesting ducks.

Prof. Brooks (1934) has most engagingly described the enticement of pileated woodpeckers to come to feeding trays, and, incidentally, has adduced evidence of their traits of caution and of curiosity. To this he adds (MS.): “I have indicated, in an article in Bird-Lore, that we have found Pileated Woodpeckers something of clowns. The gourd experience described in the above-mentioned article seemed to be in a spirit of play. The evident curiosity displayed by many birds observed is noteworthy; under its urge they apparently lose much of their fear. Around our blinds they have used a slow and cautious approach, but once at the feeding shelves, they have not been particularly nervous or excitable. At times I have found them surprisingly tame in the open woods.”

The pileated woodpecker lives, as has been said, almost entirely within the forest cover. Its flight is commonly a matter of gliding and of slow-measured flapping through the trees. Its appearance then is unmistakable--large and black, with a flashing pattern of white beneath the wings, and a gleaming scarlet crest.

At times it rises above the treetops and moves over greater distances, and then its manner of flight bears greater likeness to the typical bounding or galloping flight of the generality of woodpeckers. Its outline against the sky is not unlike a kingfisher’s. Dr. Sutton (1930) describes an encounter in the Pennsylvania mountains with a bird that “cackled for about fifteen minutes, pounding intermittently on a tree trunk. It then rose in air, mounted to a plane above the tree-tops, and flew in direct course down the valley, uttering a single, loud, even-toned _puck_ about every two seconds, as far as we could hear it. The bird was still flying high when it faded from view.”

Cornelius Weygandt (1912) described from Monroe County, Pa., the appearance of “the Logcock that in late July and early August made the sunset hour more memorable by its passing”:

It was on the evening of July 26 that we first saw him
* * * we noticed a large bird flying heron-like toward
us. He passed us and made his way onward toward a tall
broken-topped gum tree that stood out black against the
sunset. He “landed” on its side near the top, woodpecker
fashion, and bobbed downtrunk backwards for several yards.
The sky was mauve and gold and crimson, and the great
bird loomed blacker and bigger than he really was, limned
sharply against it. He had not dropped along like the
smaller woodpeckers, but had kept on more steadily, very
like a heron, with only slight risings and fallings. After
a rest on the gum tree of some three minutes he flung
himself into the air and dove down into the Buck Hill Gorge.

Vickers (1915) characterizes the bird’s flight as “powerful and straight-forward, his head and neck carrying his powerful beak like a spear * * * [the bird] large as a crow and with a certain short, sturdy, kingfisherlike aspect.”

In general conclusion it may be said that the pileated woodpecker has the habit and manner of a giant, forest-loving flicker.

_Voice._--Throughout the greater part of the year the pileated woodpecker is a relatively silent bird, but during the nesting season drumming and calling are frequent. The usual call is a cackle, resembling that of the flicker, though louder and of more sonorous quality. The “song” of the white-breasted nuthatch so far resembles it in pitch and tempo that a nuthatch near at hand may, for an instant, suggest the woodpecker far away. The _ka, ka, ka_ of the woodpecker’s cackle is variable in quality, in speed of iteration, and in continuity, and seems to be expressive, sometimes of alarm, sometimes of companionship, sometimes of contentment. Aretas A. Saunders (1935) has noted that often there is rise in pitch at the beginning of a rendition and a slight fall at the end; and Samuel Scoville, Jr. (1920), distinguishing this from the flicker’s similar call, has remarked on “a queer little quirk at the end.” When a pair of birds cackle in alternation, as commonly they do, a difference in pitch will be noted; but whether that be a constant sexual difference, or a matter of individuality merely, I cannot say.

In the nesting season the mated birds have another flickerlike _wuck-a-wuck_ call that seems to be peculiarly associated with their conjugal relationship. They use it in courtship and when they relieve one another in attendance at the nest.

Dr. Sutton (1930) mentions yet another call and describes it as “whining notes, suggesting the _mew_ of the yellow-bellied sapsucker.” But it is more than that. It is a loud cry, that resembles the scream of a hawk. It is commonly reiterated slowly in five or six repetitions. Unless one were to follow the sound and discover its source, he would hardly impute it to this bird. It too, I believe, is a call peculiar to the nesting season.

When the bird is in flight a slowly uttered _puck, puck_ may sometimes be heard, and sometimes what for lack of a better term may be called a creaking of the moving wings.

Besides these there is a high-pitched scream--“a bugle call,” says Florence Merriam Bailey (1902), with which the bird greets the rising sun. Horace W. Wright (1912) has noted that in June the bird is first heard within a few minutes after sunrise and has described the awakening thus: “There are eight records, when a bird has been heard loudly rapping in the distance with slow and measured blows or has called lustily and long, sometimes answered by another.”

_Enemies._--The number of eggs laid suggests that there must be some wastage: that somewhere in the round of life the bird must be peculiarly exposed to destruction; and to this point Dr. Sutton (1930) speaks:

The Duck Hawk (_Rhynchodon peregrinus anatum_) appears to
be the chief, indeed perhaps the only, natural enemy of
this woodpecker in this State [Pennsylvania]. At Spruce
Creek, Huntingdon County, where these falcons have nested
for years, I found, on March 21, 1921, the head and plumage
of a male woodpecker which had not been dead long. Near
Palmerton, Carbon County, I saw a Duck Hawk pursue and with
ease strike down a pileated woodpecker that had started
to fly across the river. The hawk flew so fast that the
woodpecker seemed to have been unaware of the pursuit. A
cloud of feathers burst from the body of the victim as
it collapsed. The duck hawk apparently winters regularly
along some of our streams, and takes whatever comes along,
with a preference, perhaps, for the somewhat larger birds;
and to it the comparatively clumsy log cock falls easy
prey. So far as I know, neither the great horned owl nor
the Cooper’s hawk ever captures the bird, and our stomach
examinations of several hundred Goshawks revealed none
of its bones or plumage, though this savage predator no
doubt occasionally captures such birds as are to be found
throughout the winter.

R. B. Simpson (1910) wrote: “I once shot a Sharp-shinned Hawk that was making a desperate attempt to catch a pileated * * *. A year or two ago in summer along a trout stream in virgin forest back in the mountains [of northern Pennsylvania], I came to a mossy spot where a pileated had been wrecked and a close inspection showed the tracks of a huge wildcat who had no doubt caught the big woodpecker on the ground or on a log.” See also Bendire (1895).

In addition to man’s disturbance of habitat with which this paper has had largely to do, the following matters are noteworthy:

Pennant (1785) wrote that the Indians made a practice of decking their calumets with the crests of these birds. And see Bendire (1895).

Audubon (1842) said of the pileated woodpecker: “Its flesh is tough, of a bluish tint, and smells so strongly of the worms and insects on which it generally feeds, as to be extremely unpalatable.” Sutton (1930), however, was able to show, both by the testimony of living witnesses and by written record as well, that these birds, along with other smaller birds, were once commonly exposed for sale as food in city markets.

Major Bendire (1895) wrote:

I have occasionally seen bunches of these birds, numbering
from four to twelve, exposed for sale in the markets of
Washington, D. C. * * * I tried to eat one, when short of
meat, while traveling through the Blue Mountains of Oregon,
but I certainly can not recommend it. It feeds to a great
extent on the large black wood ants, which impart to it a
very peculiar, and to me an extremely unpleasant flavor,
a kind of sweet-sour taste, which any amount of seasoning
and cooking does not disguise, and I consider it as a very
unpalatable substitute for game of any kind.

_Winter._--As is true of other members of the family, the pileated woodpecker may in fall be found digging for himself a cavity for winter occupancy. Few birds other than the woodpeckers make what may be called habitations, except as part of or incident to the activities of reproduction. And in the case of the woodpeckers, while I know that in particular instances these winter retreats are not so used, I am unable to say that they never are subsequently used as nesting cavities.

Hoyes Lloyd (1932) wrote:

One of the most delightful bird adventures we have had at
Rockcliffe Park [near the City of Ottawa] was the visit
to us of a pileated woodpecker. It first came at 4:30 p. m.,
on October 12, 1928, and excavated a hole in a hollow
basswood for sleeping quarters * * *. The chips, from live
wood, were up to three inches by two inches in area, and
an eighth of an inch thick. Each chip had two or three
gouge-like beak marks across its surface. At 4:50 p. m.
on the next day the pileated came home, and although we
were all outdoors, it went directly to its own tree and
after a brief survey of affairs in the vicinity, retired.
The approach was silent except, possibly for a single
Flicker-like note in the distance. About 9 a. m., on
the 14th, our bird woke me up with a loud _kuk-kuk-kuk_
call and it looked very large as it climbed up the home
basswood. Promptly at quarter to five it came home,
undoubtedly after a day among the big hardwoods of the
neighborhood. We were all impressed by its great length of
neck, as it swung its head with a curious bobbing motion,
that was used, without doubt, to give a view on each side
of the home tree, before going into the hole for the night.
A pileated, thought to be the same bird, came back on March
22, 1929, possibly, or certainly on the 23rd, and slept in
its winter home.

Prof. Brooks writes (MS.): “At French Creek [Upshur County, W. Va.], two birds used a nesting cavity as a roosting place during the following winter.”

CEOPHLOEUS PILEATUS FLORIDANUS (Ridgway)

FLORIDA PILEATED WOODPECKER

HABITS

This is the race that is supposed to inhabit central and southern Florida, as far north as Orange County, but there seems to be some doubt as to the desirability of naming it. Ridgway (1914) describes it as “similar to _P. p. pileatus_, but decidedly blacker (that is, the general black color less slaty or sooty), and average size less, with bill usually relatively shorter and broader.” But he admits his doubt, in a footnote, saying:

I have found it very difficult to decide as to the
propriety of separating a form of this species from central
and southern Florida, but after having several times laid
out and carefully compared the entire series of specimens
from more southern localities, have come to the conclusion
that to do so will, apparently, best express the facts of
the case. Going by size alone, there is little difference
between specimens from southern and central Florida
and those from localities as far northward as Maryland
(lowlands), southern Illinois, and Missouri; in fact some
of these more northern specimens are quite as small as
Florida ones. But the series from central and southern
Florida are uniformly decidedly blacker than the rest. * * *
I have restricted the name _pileatus_ to an intermediate
form, characterized by the small size of _P. p. floridanus_
combined with an appreciably lighter (more slaty or sooty)
coloration, often approaching closely the lightness of hue
of _P. p. abieticola_.

Bangs (1898), in separating the northern race from the southern, says that “southern South Carolina must be considered the type locality of the species, and birds from this region are as extreme of the southern race as those from Florida.” Furthermore, Arthur H. Howell (1932) observes that “careful study of a large series from Florida in comparison with a series of typical _pileatus_ from the Middle States shows no constant difference in color, as claimed by Ridgway for the subspecies ‘_floridanus_’; evidently specimens kept for some years become more brownish (less sooty), which fact probably explains Ridgway’s mistake, he having compared fresh Florida skins with older skins from the Middle States.” Probably, also, if specimens from the two regions in similar seasonal plumage were compared, there would not be so much difference in coloration as Ridgway claims. Even if Ridgway is correct in his diagnosis, it would seem unwise, in the author’s opinion, to recognize the Florida race and thus establish an intermediate race, where the gradation in both size and color warrants the naming of only the two extremes.

Mr. Howell (1932) says of its haunts: “The pileated woodpecker in Florida inhabits several different types of country--pine woods, cypress swamps, hardwood swamps, and hammocks of cabbage palmetto and other trees. The birds are perhaps most numerous in hammocks or swamps, where there is an abundance of decaying trees.”

_Nesting._--Mr. Howell (1932) writes: “We found a number of pairs breeding in cypress trees along the borders of Lake Istokpoga. The nests are excavated either in living trees or in rotten stubs, from 12 to 75 feet from the ground. The trees commonly used for nesting sites are cypress, pine, black gum, oak, and cabbage palmetto.” While collecting in the Florida Keys in 1908, I found a pair of pileated woodpeckers nesting on Murrays Key on April 3 and surprised one of the birds working in its nesting hole; the excavation was about 12 feet from the ground in the main trunk of a live black mangrove, which stood in the inner fringe of mangroves around the borders of the island. I climbed up to it and reached into the cavity but could not touch the bottom of it; we were unable to visit the island again.

Major Bendire (1895) writes:

In southern Florida the mating season commences early in
March, and farther north correspondingly later. A suitable
tree having been selected, generally a dead one in large
and extensive woods, both birds work alternately on the
nesting site. This is usually excavated in the main trunk,
from 12 to 75 feet from the ground, and it takes from seven
to twelve days to complete it. 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 cavity varies from 7 to 30 inches in depth, and is
gradually enlarged toward the bottom, where it is about 6
inches wide. A layer of chips is left at the bottom, on
which the eggs are deposited. Occasionally the entrance
hole, instead of being circular, is oval in shape, like
that of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. The inside of the
cavity is quite smooth, the edges of the entrance are
nicely beveled, and, taken as a whole, it is quite an
artistic piece of work.

Dr. William L. Ralph told Bendire of a clever trick practiced by this woodpecker; he found a nest “in the second week in April, about the time nidification is at its height there. On rapping on the trunk of the tree the bird, which was at home, stuck his head out of the hole and dropped some chips, naturally causing the Doctor to believe that the nesting site was still unfinished. The same performance was repeated on several subsequent visits, and finally he concluded to examine the nest anyhow, when he found nearly full-grown young. This pair of birds must have had eggs at the time he first discovered the nest, and the chips were simply thrown out as a ruse to deceive him.”

_Eggs._--This woodpecker lays, ordinarily, three or four eggs, rarely five. These are indistinguishable from those of the species from other southern States. The measurements of 22 eggs average 33.61 by 24.75 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure =36.2= by 24.5, 35.70 by =26.19=, =31.5= by 24.0, and 34.2 by =22.8= millimeters.

_Food._--Mr. Howell (1932) states that “this large woodpecker is a decidedly useful species. It never injures farm crops, but feeds entirely in the forests, rendering good service there in the destruction of wood-boring beetles. It eats, also, ants and wild fruits and berries, including the fruit of the sour gum, tupelo gum, dogwood, persimmon, frost grape, holly, poison ivy, sumac, and hackberry.” C. J. Maynard (1896) says that they “are partial to the berries of the palmetto, feeding, in Florida, upon little else when these are in season.”

CEOPHLOEUS PILEATUS PICINUS (Bangs)

WESTERN PILEATED WOODPECKER

HABITS

In describing and naming this large, dark-colored race from the Northwest coast region, Outram Bangs (1910) says that it is “as large as, or even larger than, _P. pileatus abieticola_ (Bangs), but color sooty black as in _P. pileatus pileatus_ (Linn.), the throat usually much marked with sooty, and the sides and flanks but slightly marked with grayish.”

Major Bendire (1895) writes of its haunts: “In the mountains of Oregon, and presumably in other localities, the pileated woodpecker is most frequently met with in the extensive burnt tracts, the so-called ‘deadenings,’ where forest fires have swept through miles of fine timber and killed everything in its path. Such localities afford this species an abundant food supply in the slowly decaying trees, and are sure to atract them.”

Grinnell, Dixon, and Linsdale (1930) say that in the Lassen Peak region in California “individuals of this woodpecker were found in or among white firs, red firs, incense cedars, and yellow pines. Foraging birds were often working on rotting stumps or logs close to the ground. Almost invariably, even when in the tops of tall trees, the birds were on dead or softened wood.”

_Nesting._--J. A. Munro (1923) says: “In southern British Columbia nesting begins early in May. The nest is a chiselled hole in a tree, fourteen to eighteen inches deep, cut occasionally in a green cottonwood or poplar, more often in a dead pine or fir, and rarely in any but the tallest trees and at a considerable distance above the ground. On a cushion of fine chips three or four rose-white eggs are laid.”

Carriger and Wells (1919) give an interesting account of the nesting of the western pileated woodpecker in Placer County, Calif. The first nest, containing young birds, was found early in June 1915. “The tree stood about fifteen feet from the shore of the lake and in about five feet of water. At its base the diameter was about eighteen inches, at the nest entrance about ten. The tree was a live aspen. * * *

“The nest cavity was eighteen inches deep and six inches in diameter, while the entrance was three inches in width. The entire excavation had been made in live wood although there were plenty of large dead trees near by.”

On May 16, 1916, they returned to this locality and found the birds nesting in the same tree in a new hole “located three feet higher up and on the opposite side of the tree.” The nest contained three newly hatched young and one unhatched egg. Another visit was made the following year, on May 5, but the woodpeckers “had abandoned the lake and were making their home in a tree located in the channel of a small stream which flowed into the lake and about three hundred yards from their former site. The nest was found to be about half completed. Visits were made to it on several occasions until May 26, but the birds were not seen again.”

In 1918 they were more successful. There was practically no water in the lake; and, on May 2, a search was “made through the aspen grove which in former years had stood in its entirety in from two to seven or eight feet of water, with the result that Mr. Flickinger discovered a fresh hole forty feet up in a live aspen growing close to the lake shore.” The nest had been completed, but no eggs had been laid. Returning on May 12, they collected a set of four fresh eggs. They say:

The nest cavity was eighteen inches deep by about six in
diameter, while the entrance was nearly four inches across.

The nest was visited again on June 1 by both of us, and
to our surprise we found that the birds had used the same
cavity for a second set of eggs, four in number, which
were three-quarters incubated. The short time intervening
between the two sets shows that the birds did not lose any
time after their first set was lost to them. The locality
was again visited on June 30 and we found that the birds
had finished another cavity about two hundred feet from
the first tree and apparently the female was brooding a
third set. We did not disturb the bird and hope that she
successfully raised her brood.

Inasmuch as the lake contained no water at this point we
made a careful search of the upper end of the basin with
the result that twenty cavities in all were located in
various trees in what is usually the lake or very close to
its shores. Most of these cavities were in live aspens.
Apparently this pair of birds has nested here for a great
many years, for although we have carefully worked the
surrounding country for miles in every direction we have
never discovered other birds or their cavities.

_Eggs._--The western pileated woodpecker apparently lays either three or four eggs; I have no record of five. The eggs are indistinguishable from those of the northern pileated woodpecker. The measurements of two eggs in the P. B. Philipp collection are 30.9 by 23 and 29.6 by 22.9 millimeters. W. L. Dawson (1923) gives the average measurement as 32.5 by 24.1 millimeters.

_Young._--Mrs. Irene G. Wheelock (1904) gives the following interesting account of the young:

The parents are very devoted to their treasures whether
they be eggs or infant woodpeckers, and the male rarely
fails to stand on guard on a high perch ready to warn and
defend should possible danger threaten. The method of
feeding is like that of the flickers, by regurgitation for
the first two weeks or longer. The adult comes with gular
pouch full of food and alights at one side of the nest hole
to rest a moment. Though he may have come noiselessly and
from the other side of the tree, yet his approach is always
heralded by a mowing-machine chorus from the young, plainly
heard some yards away. If old enough, the queer-looking
little heads are thrust out of the doorway, and the parent,
inserting his long bill into the open mouth of a youngling,
shakes it vigorously, thereby emptying the food from his
throat into that of his offspring. Each in turn is fed in
this odd fashion. * * *

For a week or two after the young have left the nest,
they follow their parents begging for food with ludicrous
eagerness; at this time the provender brought them consists
of nuts, berries, ants, and the larvae of beetles. These,
especially the nuts, are often placed in a crevice of the
bark, and the youngster is compelled to pick them out.
After a few trials he learns to hammer right merrily and is
ready to forage for himself.

_Food._--The western pileated woodpecker lives on much the same kind of food as its eastern relative, but naturally on different species of insects and berries. Dr. Harold C. Bryant (1916) examined the stomach of one, taken in Lake County, Calif., on November 5, 1915, and says: “The stomach contained more than fifty carpenter ants (_Camponotus herculaneus_ subsp.) and 131 seeds of poison oak (_Rhus diversiloba_). As the seeds of poison oak are hard and without a noticeable covering of softer material it is difficult to understand what there is about them that is attractive to birds. Certain it is that the seeds are incapable of complete digestion by woodpeckers.” And he adds: “The stomachs of two pileated woodpeckers taken in or near Yosemite National Park * * * were filled with carpenter ants (_Camponotus herculaneus modoc_ Wheeler), many of them winged. Each stomach contained more than a hundred of these ants. In addition one stomach contained a whole fruit of manzanita (_Arctostaphylos nevadensis_ Gray) and the other, four large beetle larvae (_Cerambycidae_), unidentifiable as to genus or species, which had evidently been dug out of some dead tree, as the stomach contained slivers of dead wood.”

J. A. Munro (1930) writes: “On December 2, 1926, a pileated woodpecker was seen scrambling among the thick entwined branches of Virginia creeper that partly covered the walls of a house situated on the shore of Okanagan Lake. Here it remained for twenty minutes, busily picking off the fruit. Subsequently, during the month of December, it often was observed eating these berries at the same place and likewise at a vine-covered house half a mile distant. Sometimes it appeared at both houses on the same day, but more often only one house was visited.”

Charles W. Michael (1928) gives the following interesting account:

Beside the road, with branches overhanging it, stands a
group of mountain dogwoods (_Cornus nuttalli_). These
trees bore this year a heavy crop of fruit. At the end of
each flower stalk was a bunched cluster of ripe berries.
The Pileated Woodpecker was here today [September 19] to
collect his toll of fruit. The fruit being at the ends
of slender branches we thought the heavy-bodied bird
would be out of luck. How could the big fellow reach the
fruit? He was apparently not just sure himself. At first
he tried walking out the heavier branches; but always as
he approached the tip-ends they bent under his weight and
threw the berries beyond reach. By working out on a cedar
branch that intermingled with the dogwood branches he did
manage to get a taste of fruit, just enough to tease his
appetite. He was not to be cheated, however; for his next
move was to flutter clumsily up to a branch containing
berries, clutch the branch firmly with his strong feet, and
then drop to swing like a great pendulum. He now had the
system. Swinging head down he would pick the berries one by
one, loosen his hold, swing into flight and then repeat the
performance on another branch.

MELANERPES ERYTHROCEPHALUS (Linnaeus)

RED-HEADED WOODPECKER

PLATES 25-27

HABITS

This handsome and conspicuously colored woodpecker enjoys a wide distribution over much of North America, from southern Canada to the Gulf coast, east of the Rocky Mountains, and west of New England and eastern Canada. It is recorded from British Columbia, and is rare in New England. The only one I have seen in southeastern Massachusetts, in 50 years of field work, was chased across the line from Rhode Island before I shot it. Throughout the northern portion of its range, it is a summer resident only, though in mild winters, when food is abundant, it may remain all through winter.

The red-headed woodpecker is essentially a bird of the open country and not in any sense a forest dweller. I first met this woodpecker in northern New York while on a fishing trip on the St. Lawrence River; here it was fairly common in open groves of large trees or in groups of scattered trees in open fields, where its brilliant color pattern made it very conspicuous; it was frequently seen sitting on telegraph poles, fence posts, the dead tops of tall trees, or on dead stubs. Dr. Elon H. Eaton (1914) says of its haunts in that State: “The preferred home of this woodpecker is in open groves and ‘slashings’ and ‘old burns’ and tracts of half-dead forest where the live trees are scattered and dead stubs are in abundance.”

Spencer Trotter (1903) writes: “I first saw the bird on a certain hill-side in Maryland that was grown up with tall white-oaks, not thickly, but open enough for a sheep-pasture, with vistas of close-cropped grass among the gray tree-trunks. In this setting a Woodpecker winged before me from tree to tree with its strongly contrasted blotches of black, white, and crimson flashing in the sunlight.”

In Florida I have found it most commonly in the large burned-over areas in the pine woods, where numerous dead trees and stubs are left standing; these offer attractive nesting sites and some food supply. But Arthur H. Howell (1932) says: “The red-head is the most domestic of our woodpeckers, living frequently in the heart of populous towns and nesting in telephone poles on village streets. The birds are especially attracted to newly cleared lands, where many dead or girdled trees are left standing. They are common, also, in open pine forests in certain sections, but in other seemingly suitable localities are not to be found.”

_Nesting._--As my experience with the nesting habits of the red-headed woodpecker is almost nothing, I shall have to draw on the observations of others. Major Bendire (1895) makes the following general statement:

Some of its nesting sites are exceedingly neat pieces
of work; the edges of the entrance hole are beautifully
beveled off, and the inside is as smooth as if finished
with a fine rasp. The entrance is about 1¾ inches in
diameter and the inner cavity varies from 8 to 24 inches
in depth; the eggs are deposited on a layer of fine chips.
It usually nests in the dead tops or limbs of deciduous
trees, or in old stumps of oak, ash, butternut, maple,
elm, sycamore, cottonwood, willow, and other species,
more rarely in coniferous and fruit trees, at heights
varying from 8 to 80 feet from the ground, and also not
infrequently in natural cavities. On the treeless prairies
it has to resort mainly to telegraph poles and fence posts,
and here it also nests under the roofs of houses or in any
dark corner it can find.

John Helton, Jr., tells me that in Alabama the favorite nesting site is in a rotten stump from which the bark has peeled off; he very seldom finds a nest in a tree with bark on it. M. G. Vaiden sends me a note on a nest that was only 5 feet from the ground in a limb of a-dead oak near Rosedale, Miss. The nests are often placed near houses or in trees on town or village streets. Two broods are often raised in a season and sometimes in the same cavity; A. D. DuBois tells, in his notes, of such a Minnesota nest; the earlier brood had been raised in a newly excavated cavity that was 14 inches deep; the second set of eggs was laid at a depth of only 9 inches, the bed for the eggs having been raised 5 inches by chiseling fresh chips from the inner walls of the cavity. Dr. H. C. Oberholser (1896b) gives the average measurements of four Ohio nests as follows: Total depth 10.75; diameter of entrance 2.06 by 1.66; diameter at entrance 3.81 by 2.69; diameter at middle 4.50 by 3.88; and diameter at bottom 4.41 by 3.35 inches.

In the prairie regions and in other places, where trees are scarce and these woodpeckers are common, some unusual and odd nesting sites have been noted. Kumlien and Hollister (1903) write: “Among some of the odd nesting sites we have noted are the following: Between two flat rails on an old style rail fence; the hub of a broken wagon wheel, leaning against a fence; the box of a grain drill left standing in a field; a hole excavated in the hollow cylinder of an ordinary pump; common fence posts and telegraph poles. These were usually in prairie regions where there were few, if any, suitable trees.”

G. S. Agersborg (1881) mentions a nest that “was in the angle formed by the shares of an upturned plow” in South Dakota. And E. A. Stoner (1915) flushed a red-headed woodpecker from a blue jay’s nest in Iowa. “The nest was eight feet up in an oak sapling and was a typical Blue Jay’s but was found to contain three pure white and unmistakably Woodpecker eggs.”

_Eggs._--Major Bendire (1895) writes: “The number of eggs to a set varies from four to seven, sets of five being most frequently found, while occasionally as many as eight eggs have been taken from a nest. Mr. R. C. McGregor records taking a set of ten eggs of the red-head, varying in size from ordinary down to that of the song sparrow. Incubation varied from fresh in the smallest egg to advanced in the larger (Oologist, vol. 5, p. 44, 1888).”

If the first set of eggs is taken, another set will be completed within the next 10 or 12 days, usually in the same hole. Like the flicker, this woodpecker is very persistent in its attempt to raise a brood and will keep on laying, if repeatedly robbed. C. C. Bacon (1891), of Bell, Ky., reports taking six sets of eggs, 28 eggs in all, from the same nest in a single season, after which the birds drilled a new hole in the same tree and raised a brood of four young; this persevering pair drilled two holes and laid 32 eggs before they succeeded in raising a brood.

The eggs vary in shape from short ovate to rounded ovate, are pure white in color, and somewhat glossy when incubated. The measurements of 54 eggs average 25.14 by 19.17 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure =27.18= by 19.30, 26.16 by =20.57=, =23= by 18.20, and 23.11 by =17.78= millimeters.

_Young._--Incubation is said to last for about 14 days. Both sexes assist in this duty, as well as in the care of the young. As an egg is laid each day, and, as incubation often begins before the set is complete, the young may hatch on different days.

Mr. DuBois writes to me that one nest that he watched held newly hatched young on June 11; they were in the nest on July 7 but had left before 2 p. m. on the 9th, making the period in the nest approximately 27 days. He says: “The newly hatched, naked young have extremely long necks, longer in fact than their bodies. The four young all faced inward, each toward a point to the right of the center of the nest; and when in repose, each neck crossed the necks of the two others at right angles to its own--like woof and warp in a loom. A little noise on my part made all four of them stretch their necks straight upward; but when they collapsed, their necks became again interwoven. Each lowered its head to its own right side of the one opposite it. There were egg shells still in the nest.”

Julian K. Potter (1912) says of a nest that he watched at Camden, N. J.:

The old birds fed the young at varying intervals, sometimes
going to the nest once in every three or four minutes for a
half hour, then not appearing again for fifteen or twenty
minutes. * * *

The young birds left the nest about June 25. On that day
I saw them out in the open, quite able to take care of
themselves, although the parents fed them occasionally.
[This pair raised a second brood that season, and had
young on July 30.] Meanwhile the young of the first brood
were being very much misused by their parents, and were
driven away whenever they came in sight; in fact they
were persecuted to such an extent that they must have been
driven from the locality, for I was unable to find them
after July 30.

Some writers have said that only one brood is raised in a season, and others that two broods are raised only in the southern part of the breeding range. But Mr. DuBois reports two broods in Minnesota; and Mr. Potter one brood one season and two broods the next season for his pair in New Jersey.

_Plumages._--The young are hatched naked and blind, but they acquire the juvenal plumage before they leave the nest. The sexes are alike in all plumages, and the juvenal plumage is quite unlike that of the adult. In the juvenal plumage, the head, neck, and upper chest are brownish gray, spotted above and streaked below with dusky; the back is black but not glossy as in the adult; the wings are as in the adult, except that the secondaries and tertials are white but more or less patterned or barred with black, chiefly near the tips, and the primaries are edged with buffy white on the outer webs; the under parts below the chest are dull white, clouded with brownish gray and more or less streaked with dusky, chiefly on the sides and flanks. This plumage is usually worn in its purity through July and August and sometimes into October, though sometimes a few red feathers are seen in the head; I have seen two or three red feathers in the head as early as June 29 and a bird not much farther advanced on December 1. But usually the complete molt into the adult plumage begins in September and lasts through winter; the change begins on the head and back in fall, but the wings are not usually molted until April, and even then some of the juvenal secondaries may be retained. Most young birds are in practically adult plumage before May.

Adults have a complete postnuptial molt in August and September; they may have a partial molt in spring, but I have not seen it. Some highly plumaged birds, probably old birds and mostly from western localities, have the abdomen tinged with red.

_Food._--Much has been written on the food habits of the red-headed woodpecker, a most resourceful feeder on a greatly varied diet. Prof. F. E. L. Beal (1895) makes the following report on the contents of 101 stomachs, collected throughout the year in various parts of the country:

Animal matter, 50 percent; vegetable matter, 47 percent;
mineral matter, 3 percent. * * * The insects consist of
ants, wasps, beetles, bugs, grasshoppers, crickets, moths,
and caterpillars. Spiders and myriapods also were found.
Ants amounted to about 11 percent of the whole food. * * *
Beetle remains formed nearly one-third of all food.
* * * The families represented were those of the common
May beetle (_Lachnosterna_), which was found in several
stomachs, the predaceous ground beetles, tiger beetles,
weevils, and a few others. * * * Weevils were found in 15
stomachs, and in several cases as many as 10 were present.
Remains of Carabid beetles were found in 44 stomachs to
an average amount of 24 percent of the contents of those
that contained them, or 10 percent of all. The fact that
43 percent of all the birds taken had eaten these beetles,
some of them to the extent of 16 individuals, shows a
decided fondness for these insects, and taken with the fact
that 5 stomachs contained Cicindelids or tiger beetles
forms a rather strong indictment against the bird.

The vegetable food includes corn, dogwood berries, huckleberries, strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, mulberries, elderberries, wild black cherries, choke cherries, cultivated cherries, wild grapes, apples, pears, various seeds, acorns, and beechnuts. Prof. Beal (1895) reports that--

corn was found in 17 stomachs, collected from May to
September, inclusive, and amounted to more than 7
percent of all the food. While it seems to be eaten in
any condition, that taken in the late summer was in the
milk, and evidently picked from standing ears. This * * *
corroborates some of the testimony received, and indicates
that the Redhead, if sufficiently abundant, might do
considerable damage to the growing crop, particularly if
other food was not at hand. While the fruit list is not so
long as in the case of the Flicker, it includes more kinds
that are, or may be, cultivated; and the quantity found
in the stomachs, a little more than 33 percent of all the
food, is greater than in any of the others. Strawberries
were found in 1 stomach, blackberries or raspberries in
15, cultivated cherries in 2, apples in 4, and pears in
6. Fruit pulp was found in 33 stomachs, and it is almost
certain that a large part of this was obtained from some of
the larger cultivated varieties. Seeds were found in but
few stomachs, and only a small number in each.

Audubon (1842) gives this woodpecker a rather bad name, saying:

I would not recommend to anyone to trust their fruit to
the red-heads; for they not only feed on all kinds as
they ripen, but destroy an immense quantity besides. No
sooner are the cherries seen to redden, than these birds
attack them. * * * Trees of this kind are stripped clean
by them. * * * I may safely assert that a hundred have
been shot upon a single cherry-tree in one day. * * * They
have another bad habit, which is that of sucking the eggs
of small birds. For this purpose, they frequently try to
enter the boxes of the Martins or Bluebirds, as well as
the pigeon-houses, and are often successful. The corn, as
it ripens, is laid bare by their bill, when they feed on
the top parts of the ear, and leave the rest either to the
Grakles or the Squirrels, or still worse, to decay, after a
shower has fallen upon it.

Bendire (1895) adds to the evidence against this gay villain. He personally saw a red-headed woodpecker rifle a nest of a red-shafted flicker and carry off an egg. He quotes from one observer who had seen one of these woodpeckers clean out a nest of young of the tufted titmouse, and from another who had seen one carrying off a freshly killed young robin. W. G. Smith wrote to him from Colorado: “The red-headed woodpecker is a common summer resident in the lower foothills along the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains in this State, and I consider it a veritable butcher among our nuthatches and chickadees, driving every one away from its nesting sites, and woe to the bird that this villain can reach. It destroys both eggs and young, dragging the latter out of their nests and frequently leaving them dead at the entrance of their holes.”

He also relates the following personal experience:

We noticed a red-headed woodpecker take something,
apparently a bunch of moss, from a crotch of a maple and
carry it to a fence post of an adjacent field. After
worrying some time in trying to swallow something rather
too large for his gullet, he finally succeeded, after an
effort, and then worked some little time, evidently trying
to secrete the remainder. Both of us had our field glasses
and were watching the bird’s actions closely. After some
little time he flew back to the tree he had started from,
while we proceeded to the fence post to investigate, and,
much to our disgust and surprise, we found the freshly
killed and partly eaten body of a young bird, almost
denuded of feathers, securely tucked away behind the loose
bark of the post. His victim was too much mutilated to
identify positively, but looked like a half-grown bluebird,
whose head had been crushed in, the brain abstracted, and
the entire rump and entrails torn out; the only parts left
intact were the breast, upper part of the back, and the
lower portion of the head. The missing parts had evidently
just been eaten by the rascal while clinging to the top of
the post, and the remnant was then hidden for future use.

Howard Jones (1883), of Circleville, Ohio, reports the following incident:

Under the eaves of a large barn near Mt. Sterling, O., a
colony of Cliff Swallows have built for some years. Last
year they were nearly exterminated by several woodpeckers.
The redheads would alight at the doors of the mud huts and
extract the eggs from the nests with their bills. In some
nests the necks or entrance-ways were so long that the
woodpeckers could not reach the eggs by this means, but not
willing to be cheated of such choice food they would climb
around to the side, and with a few well directed blows of
their bills make openings large enough to enable them to
procure the eggs. Of the dozens of nests built not a single
brood was reared in any. One woodpecker bolder than the
rest began eating hen’s eggs wherever they could be found.

Mr. DuBois says in his notes: “A redhead, seeing a young lark sparrow flutter in the grass, attacked it and might have killed it, had I not intervened. He had struck the young bird at one of his lores and had brought blood. I have also seen this woodpecker attack a young bluebird, on the ground, just after it had left the nest.”

But not all red-headed woodpeckers are cannibals or murderers; perhaps many individuals never indulge in such practices; and all of them have some harmless and useful feeding habits. Their insect-eating habits are impressive. They are very fond of grasshoppers and destroy them in large numbers. H. B. Bailey (1878) quotes the following from a letter from G. S. Agersborg, of Vermillion, S. Dak.:

Last spring in opening a good many birds of this species
with the object of ascertaining their principal food, I
found in their stomachs nothing but young grasshoppers.
One of them, which had its headquarters near my house, was
observed making frequent visits to an old oak post, and on
examining it I found a large crack where the Woodpecker had
inserted about one hundred grasshoppers of all sizes (for
future use, as later observations proved), which were put
in without killing them, but they were so firmly wedged in
the crack that they in vain tried to get free. I told this
to a couple of farmers, and found that they had also seen
the same thing, and showed me the posts which were used for
the same purpose. Later in the season the Woodpecker, whose
station was near my house, commenced to use his stores, and
today (February 10) there are only a few shrivelled-up
grasshoppers left.

Milton P. Skinner (1928), referring to the feeding habits of this woodpecker in North Carolina, writes: