Chapter M: G. Vaiden writes to me that the pileated woodpecker is fairly (3)

Flying insects are an important source of food supply all
through the winter, but with the increase of the number
of insects in March this activity greatly increases. The
observation post for fly-catching is usually the one in
which the nest hole is situated. But I noted at least one
bird that used four tall trees in succession for this
purpose. On February 1, 1927, a red-headed woodpecker was
seen clinging to the side of a telephone pole. Twice it
left the pole, flew out twenty feet, caught an insect each
time, and returned to the pole to eat it. Two weeks later
another bird was seen to make six trips similarly out
and back during six minutes, sometimes going more than a
hundred feet from its perch. As the bird went direct to the
insect, caught it and returned immediately to its perch,
it seemed likely that the insect was seen each time before
the bird started, indicating wonderful eyesight. While not
engaged in thus hawking, this bird hunted the limbs for
prey. Ten days later I found this bird watching for insects
and making ten fly-catching sallies in minute and a half.
Its flights were from ten to one hundred and fifty feet in
length, and all the insects were from forty to sixty feet
above the ground. One of the redheads seen fly-catching in
December, returned to its dead stub where it drilled for
grubs and borers in the usual woodpecker fashion, except
that its strokes were heavy and deliberate. On another
occasion, I saw one of these birds fly down into the road
to catch and eat an earthworm.

E. D. Nauman (1930), in Iowa, watched a red-headed woodpecker feeding a young bird in the top of a tall tree. “The adult bird was at work, darting off every few moments into the air in pursuit of insects and returning after each flight to the young bird on the tree with its prey. I watched and timed it carefully for an hour. It made from five to seven trips per minute, always at an elevation of 50 to 100 feet, and caught at each trip from one to three or more insects. * * *

“A computation based upon careful observation showed that a single individual Redhead had destroyed over 600 insects in one hour. When I left, the bird was still at work, and I am, of course, unable to state how long it had been at work at this place before I came there.”

A. V. Goodpasture (1909), of Nashville, Tenn., made some interesting observations on the feeding habits of this woodpecker. He watched one preparing insect food for its young on a stump, some 4 feet high, near its nest, and says:

When one of the woodpeckers came in, it did not go directly
to the nest, but always alighted first on this stump, where
it hammered away for a time, then proceeded to the nest
with a shapeless mass in its beak. My glass having failed
to disclose their object in thus lighting and hammering
on the stump before feeding their young, I went down to
reconnoiter. The place looked like a field hospital after a
severe engagement. There were wings, and wing-covers, heads
and legs strewn around the stump in great profusion. Then
I understood it all. The stump was their meat-block, and
they were preparing the food for their young by removing
the hard and indigestible parts. They dispatched this work
with much dexterity, without using their feet to confine
the insect; they laid it on the stump, and, with the bill
alone, succeeded in removing the undesirable parts.

The kinds of insects whose remains were found there was a
study. They were almost as gaudy as the woodpecker himself.
* * * Woodpeckers can undoubtedly distinguish between
colors; they find the ruddiest apple and the rosiest
peach in the orchard. In like manner, they seem to be
attracted by bright-colored insects. They prefer beautiful
butterflies, silky moths, and brilliant beetles. The
favorite food of this pair was the June-bug; not the plain
brown beetle of the northern states, but the beautiful
green and gold June-bug of the South--associated in the
mind with sultry summer days, and ripe blackberries, on
which he feeds. * * *

I found not only the dismembered wing-covers of the
June-bug around the Woodpecker’s meat-block, but, in a
pit on the splintered top of the stump, I found a live
June-bug. And what a prison he was in! It was a thousand
times worse than the Black Hole of Calcutta. They had
turned him on his back and pounded him into a cavity that
so exactly fitted him that he could move nothing but his
legs, which were plying like weaver’s shuttles in the empty
air. I always found the June-bugs deposited on their backs,
and always alive.

The red-headed woodpecker also shares with the California woodpecker the provident habit of storing acorns and nuts. Fannie Hardy Eckstorm (1901) says:

Lately it has been discovered that they not only eat
beechnuts all the fall, but store them up for winter use.
This time the observation was made in Indiana. There, when
the nuts were abundant, the red-heads were seen busily
carrying them off. Their accumulations were found in all
sorts of places; cavities in old tree-trunks contained nuts
by the handful; knot-holes, cracks, crevices, seams in the
barns were filled full of nuts. Nuts were tucked into the
cracks in fence-posts; they were driven into railroad ties;
they were pounded in between the shingles on the roofs; if
a board was sprung out, the space behind it was filled with
nuts, and bark or wood was often brought to cover over the
gathered store.

Unlike the California woodpecker, it does not make holes for the reception of the nuts but uses what cavities it can find. Dr. Thomas S. Roberts (1932) says that, on the outskirts of St. Paul, “a redhead spent most of October putting acorns into cracks and climbing-iron holes in a telephone pole and under the shingles of a near-by house. One crack was closely plugged for a distance of twenty feet. When the nuts were too large for the cracks they were split and driven in in pieces.”

George A. Dorsey (1926) tells of an amusing attempt of a young redhead to fill a hole in a telephone pole:

Finally he found a hole to his liking, and, chattering as
he worked, he drove the acorn in. Imagine my surprise when
I saw a couple of acorns fall out on the other side of the
pole! The hole was bored straight through the pole, and
the Woodpecker was wasting his time by pushing the acorns
through. He seemed to know that something was wrong, but
couldn’t quite reason it out. He would chatter agitatedly
and hitch around the pole to examine the other side of the
pole, but would finally give it up and go off for another
acorn. I watched him poke acorns in the hole several times,
only to have some of the ones he had previously placed
there fall out on the other side. On the ground under the
pole was about a double handful of acorns that had fallen
out.

E. D. Nauman (1932) saw a house mouse running across a paved street, but it had not gone very far when a red-headed woodpecker “darted down out of the grove and made an attack upon it. The woodpecker struck the mouse several hard and vicious blows with its stout bill, rolling and tossing it over and over. It appeared that a moment more of such treatment must have finished the mouse, had not a vehicle approached just at that instant, threatening to crush both the red-head and its prey. The bird darted away just in time to save itself, and the mouse, not having been struck by the wheels, hurriedly limped to the edge of the pavement, got over the curb with difficulty, and hid in the grass. The red-head flew back immediately to see what had become of its prospect for dinner, but the mouse was so well hidden that the bird had to give up the chase.”

Mr. DuBois writes to me that “a red-headed woodpecker was observed hanging upside down from the small twigs at the end of a branch of a large oak, evidently gleaning insect life of some sort from the twigs. It flew to another tree and repeated this method of feeding.”

Lewis O. Shelley tells me that he observed one “feeding on ants in a dry, harvested oat piece, obtaining the ants by thrusting the bill into an ant tunnel entrance and working the bill to form a cone-shaped opening, up through which the ants emerged at the disturbance, and were licked up without the bill being withdrawn from this foodhopper.”

_Behavior._--Audubon (1842) writes attractively of the behavior of this woodpecker:

With the exception of the mocking-bird, I know of no
species so gay and frolicksome. Indeed, their whole life
is one of pleasure. They find a superabundance of food
everywhere, as well as the best facilities for raising
their broods. * * * They do not seem to be much afraid of
man, although they have scarcely a more dangerous enemy.
When alighted on a fence-stake by the road, or in a field,
and one approaches them, they gradually move sidewise out
of sight, peeping now and then to discover your intention;
and when you are quite close and opposite, lie still until
you are past, when they hop to the top of the stake, and
rattle upon it with their bill, as if to congratulate
themselves on the success of their cunning. Should you
approach within arm’s length, which may frequently be done,
the woodpecker flies to the next stake or the second from
you, bends his head to peep, and rattles again, as if to
provoke you to a continuance of what seems to him excellent
sport. * * *

They chase each other on wing in a very amicable manner,
in long, beautifully curved sweeps, during which the
remarkable variety of their plumage becomes conspicuous,
and is highly pleasing to the eye. When passing from one
tree to another, their flight resembles the motion of a
great swing, and is performed by a single opening of the
wings, descending at first, and rising towards the spot
on which they are going to alight with ease, and in the
most graceful manner. They move upwards, sidewise, or
backwards, without apparent effort, but seldom with the
head downwards. * * *

On the ground, this species is by no means awkward, as it
hops there with ease, and secures beetles which it had
espied whilst on the fence or a tree.

Red-headed woodpeckers are quite quarrelsome at times with other species; besides attacking various small birds, driving them away from their nests, or robbing them of their eggs or young, they contend with other hole-nesting birds, such as starlings and the smaller woodpeckers, for the possession of nesting holes. They are jealous of their food supply and will drive other birds away from their favorite feeding places or from any choice morsel of food. They are generally the winners in such encounters, even against such aggressive rivals as blue jays and starlings. But toward birds of their own species they are often solicitous, friendly, and helpful to birds in trouble. Mr. DuBois writes to me: “A wounded female, after several attempts to fly, fluttered to the ground; and while she was fluttering in the air, her mate flew to her and apparently tried to help her to a place of safety. After reaching the ground, the female lay still in the grass, although only winged; but her mate clung to a nearby tree, from which he flew down to her repeatedly, showing great distress.”

H. M. Holland (1931) tells the following story:

A red-head was caught by one wing, and possibly a foot,
in a crack formed at the tip of a tall, dead tree where
the trunk had been broken off and left a splintered stub.
Perhaps a dozen red-heads were present, all flying here
and there, evidently much excited, and make a great ado, a
veritable woodpecker hubbub.

First one and then another would alight just below and
apparently peck at, or more often while in flight would
strike or brush against the hapless victim, whose struggles
were renewed at each encounter. The clamor became actually
distressing. At times two or three were simultaneously
fluttering close to the captive. These activities continued
for several minutes when suddenly the bird was freed, to
accomplish which it would seem that a concerted effort
had been made. Quiet was restored almost at once and the
participants dispersed.

Julian K. Potter (1912) noticed that sparrows bothered his woodpeckers considerably about their roosting holes and saw one of them fighting two starlings for the possession of a cavity, but all were eventually driven away and learned the lesson of “no trespass.” He says: “On one occasion, when I watched the woodpeckers until dark, I found that one went to roost in the nesting-hole about dusk, and the other, probably the male, shortly after went into an old hole in the same dead tree higher up.”

Mrs. John Franklin Kyler (1927) gives an interesting account of a red-headed woodpecker that she raised by hand from the nest, beginning before the young bird had opened its eyes; it developed into a very satisfactory pet, with marked affection for its foster mother; anyone who wants to try raising young birds could learn much by reading her story.

_Voice._--Bendire (1895) writes: “Its ordinary call note is a loud ‘tchur-tchur’; when chasing each other a shrill note like ‘chärr-chärr’ is frequently uttered, and alarm is expressed by a harsh, rattling note, as well as by one which, according to Mr. Otto Widmann, is indistinguishable from the note of the Tree-frog (_Hyla arborea_). He tells me that both bird and frog sometimes answer each other.”

Describing their spring notes, W. L. Dawson (1903) says:

Then the woods and groves soon resound with their loud
calls, _Quee-o--quee-o--queer_. These _queer_ cries are not
unpleasant, but the birds are a noisy lot at best. When one
of them flies into a tree where others are gathered, all
set up an outcry of _yarrow, yarrow, yarrow_, which does
not subside until the newcomer has had time to shake hands
all around at least twice. Besides these more familiar
sounds the red-heads boast an unfathomed repertory of
chirping, cackling, and raucous noises. The youngsters,
especially,--awkward, saucy fellows that most of them
are--sometimes get together and raise a fearful racket
until some of the older ones, out-stentored, interpose.

_Field marks._--The red-headed woodpecker is so conspicuously marked that it hardly could be mistaken for anything else. The large white areas in the wings and on the rump are much in evidence, in any plumage, especially in flight. The bright red of the entire head and neck and the plain white breast of the adult are also very conspicuous.

_Enemies._--The red-headed woodpecker has some bad habits, which have at times caused considerable damage to property, arousing the enmity of those who have suffered from its depredations and resulting in the destruction of large numbers of these birds. Raids on cultivated fruits have given these woodpeckers a bad name and many have been killed by fruit growers. Audubon (1842) asserts that as many as “a hundred have been shot upon a single cherry tree in one day. Pears, peaches, apples, figs, mulberries, and even peas, are thus attacked.”

They do considerable damage to pole lines by excavating their nests in them. An editorial in The Osprey (vol. 1, p. 147) quotes, as follows, from an article in the Kansas City Star:

The little red-headed woodpecker has become such a nuisance
on the electric lines of the metropolitan street railway
system, that it has become necessary to appoint an official
woodpecker exterminator. The title has been conferred on
Coffee Rice, an Independence young man, and yesterday
he killed nineteen of the destructive birds on the
Independence line. The woodpeckers attack the large poles
which hold up the feed cables and dig holes into the center
and downward to a depth of more than a foot. * * * The
result is that in a season the water gets into the heart of
the pole and it rots off and breaks, requiring a new pole
to be set up; whereas, ordinarily, the life of the big pole
is several years. A large number of the electric line poles
have been ruined this way, and there was a threatened loss
of many thousand dollars unless the pest was checked.

Red-headed woodpeckers seem to be oftener killed on highways by speeding automobiles than any other species, as attested by several observers. Dr. Dayton Stoner (1932) made some observations on this point on an automobile trip, on July 15, 1924, for a distance of 211 miles on well-graveled roads in Iowa. He says:

En route, 105 dead animals representing fifteen species
were counted; of these, thirty-nine were red-headed
woodpeckers. The mortality in this species was higher than
for any other species of vertebrate animal noted and I
believe that several contributory factors are responsible
for it. First, these birds have a propensity for feeding
upon insects and waste grain in and along the roads;
second, they delay taking wing before the approaching car,
in all probability being poor judges of its speed; and
third, they have a slow “get-away,” that is, they can not
quickly gain sufficient speed to escape the oncoming car.
However, I feel certain that a speed as high as thirty-five
to forty miles an hour is necessary in order to overtake
these birds.

Alexander Wilson (1832) writes:

Notwithstanding the care which this bird, in common with
the rest of its genus, takes to place its young beyond the
reach of enemies, within the hollows of trees, yet there
is one deadly foe, against whose depredations neither
the height of the tree nor the depth of the cavity, is
the least security. This is the black snake (_Coluber
constrictor_), who frequently glides up the trunk of the
tree, and, like a skulking savage, enters the woodpecker’s
peaceful apartment, devours the eggs or helpless young, in
spite of the cries and fluttering of the parents; and, if
the place be large enough, coils himself up in the spot
they occupied, where he will sometimes remain for several
days.

_Fall._--The fall migration is often well marked. A. H. Helme (1882), writing from Millers Place, Long Island, N. Y., where the bird occurs mainly as a migrant, says:

The first one observed this season was on the 10th of
September. On the 12th I saw three, and on the 20th I saw
one. Early on the morning of the 24th of September they
began to pass over in large numbers, and continued to pass
until about 10 o’clock, after which very few were seen,
except straggling groups of three or four, and occasionally
a single one was seen to pass over during the day. The
flight must have consisted of several hundred, principally
young birds. They came from the east and were flying west.
Many of them in their flight would alight for a few minutes
in the orchards and corn fields to feed on the half-ripened
corn, or search among the apple trees for the larva or eggs
of insects but would soon continue on their journey, and
their places would be supplied by others. I noticed one
or two to dart out and seize an insect in the manner of a
flycatcher. The following day but two or three were seen. A
few stragglers, however, were occasionally met with up to
the 10th of October, and one was seen as late as the 23rd
of November.

John B. Semple (1930) writes:

On September 16, 1929, a flight of red-headed woodpeckers
(_Melanerpes erythrocephalus_) was observed passing over
the marshes at the head of Sandusky Bay, Ohio. The birds
were flying in little groups of two to five against a
stiff southwest wind heading nearly south and at an
elevation of sixty to eighty yards. Rather more than half
of them were immature birds but the old and young were not
segregated. I was hunting ducks at the time and counted
forty-eight woodpeckers passing in a little more than two
hours. They apparently came from Ontario and probably
crossed Lake Erie by way of Point Pelee and Bass Island
which would make the flight over water only about nine
miles. It was interesting to note that each successive
group of birds followed exactly the same route over the
marshes although those that had gone before were well out
of sight.

_Winter._--The red-headed woodpecker is generally considered to be a migratory species throughout the northern portion of its breeding range, but its movements seem to depend almost entirely on the abundance or scarcity of its winter food supply, mainly acorns and beechnuts; when these nuts are available in considerable quantities, this woodpecker is to be found in reasonable numbers within its summer range in the northern States. When Dr. C. Hart Merriam (1878) referred to it as remaining occasionally in northern New York, Lewis County, in winter, some of his ornithological friends were skeptical. He says:

I therefore wrote to my friend, Mr. C. L. Bagg, asking
him to send me a lot of red-headed woodpeckers as soon as
possible, and in a week’s time received a box containing
over twenty specimens,--all killed in Lewis County and when
the snow was three feet deep! This was proof positive.
Notes kept by Mr. Bagg and myself during the past six
years show that they were abundant here during the winters
1871-72, 1873-74, 1875-76, and 1877-78; while they were
rare or did not occur at all during the winters of 1872-73
and 1876-77. Their absence was in no way governed by the
severity of the winters, but entirely dependent upon the
absence of the usual supply of beechnuts. While the greater
portion of nuts fall to the ground and are buried beneath
the snow far beyond the reach of the woodpeckers, yet
enough remain on the trees all winter to furnish abundant
subsistence for those species which feed on them. * * *

During the autumn the scattered pairs for several miles
around usually congregate in some suitable wood, containing
a plenty of beech-trees, and here spend the long cold
winter in company, chattering and chasing one another about
among the trees to keep warm, and to help while away the
time. “Coe’s woods,” in this immediate vicinity, has long
been famous as the great winter resort for the red-headed
woodpeckers of the neighborhood, and it is certainly the
most suitable place for their purposes to be found for many
miles around. This piece of woods, not over an eighth of
a mile in extent, contains, besides hundreds of beeches
(_Fagus ferruginea_), a large number of elms (_Ulmus
americana_), and white ash-trees (_Fraxinus americana_) of
great size, most of the tops of which are now dead. What
more favorable location than this woods could a woodpecker
desire? Here they have beechnuts in abundance and a
bountiful supply of dead limbs and tree-tops far above the
reach of the small charges commonly used by bird-collectors.

James B. Purdy (1900) says that “the presence of the Red-headed Woodpecker (_Melanerpes erythrocephalus_) during the winter months in Michigan does not depend upon the temperature, but entirely upon the food supply, viz.: the crop of acorns and beechnuts which precedes the winter. If these nuts are plenty, the red-headed woodpeckers will always be found during the winter months, but in no great abundance. If there are no acorns or beechnuts, this bird will be entirely absent in our Michigan forests.”

Robert Ridgway (1881) writes:

Ordinarily this species (_Melanerpes erythrocephalus_)
is decidedly the most numerous of the Woodpeckers in
Southeastern Illinois, while during the winter season it is
often so excessively common in the sheltered bottom-lands
as to outnumber all other species together, and, in fact,
is voted a decided nuisance by the hunter, sportsman,
or collector, on account of its well known habit of
following any one carrying a gun, and annoying him by its
continued chatter; at intervals sweeping before him and
thus diverting attention. Being at this season always
semi-gregarious, while they are of all woodpeckers the most
restless and sportive, the annoyance which they thus cause
is really no trifling matter.

Evidently, they do not always spend the winter even here, for he says: “In the early part of October, 1879, I paid my usual yearly visit to my old home, and scarcely had arrived at the house ere my father informed me, as a bit of news which he was well aware would both interest and surprise me, that the red-headed woodpeckers had all migrated; that for a number of nights preceding he had heard overhead their well-known notes as they winged their way to some more or less distant region; in short, that the woods that had been their home ‘knew them now no more.’”

Even as far south as South Carolina, according to Arthur T. Wayne (1910): “The controlling influence upon the migration of this species in winter is the presence or absence of acorns of the live and water oaks. If the crop of acorns is large, this woodpecker is abundant during the winter months, but if there are no acorns, the bird is entirely absent, no matter whether the season is mild or severe.”

DISTRIBUTION

_Range._--Southern Canada and the United States east of the Rocky Mountains; irregularly migratory in the northern parts of its range.

_Breeding range._--The breeding range of the red-headed woodpecker extends =north= to northern Montana (Strabane, Lewistown, Fairview, and Terry); northern North Dakota (Arnegard and Willow City); southern Manitoba (Lake St. Martin and Winnipeg); southern Ontario (Kenora, Cobden, and Ottawa); southern Quebec (Three Rivers and Hatley); and southern New Brunswick (St. John). The =eastern= limits of the range extend from New Brunswick (St. John) south along the Atlantic coast to Florida (Orlando and Fort Myers). =South= through the Gulf coastal regions of Florida, Mississippi, and Louisiana; central Texas (Waco); and central New Mexico (Fort Sumner and Albuquerque). =West= to New Mexico (Albuquerque and Santa Fe); central Colorado (Hotchkiss, Golden, Estes Park, and Fort Collins); eastern Wyoming (Laramie and Carey burst); and Montana (Kirby, Billings, Lewistown, and Strabane).

During the summer season the species also has been taken or observed north to southeastern Alberta (Medicine Hat, Big Stick, and Eastend); southern Saskatchewan (Oak Lake, Aweme, and Pilot mound); Quebec (Quebec City); and New Brunswick (Beaver Dam).

_Winter range._--The normal winter range of the red-headed woodpecker appears to extend =north= to Oklahoma (Oklahoma City and Okmulgee); northeastern Iowa (National); Illinois (Ohio and Mount Carmel); Tennessee (Nashville and Knoxville); West Virginia (Charlestown and Clarksburg); and southeastern Pennsylvania (Philadelphia). At this season it is never common on the Atlantic coast north of South Carolina (Charleston), but is found from there =south= to southern Florida (Miami). From this point it winters westward along the Gulf coast to Louisiana and probably Texas. The =western= limits of the winter range appear to be central Texas (probably Somerset) and Oklahoma (Caddo and Oklahoma City).

In addition to the winter range above given, it also has been noted casually at this season in eastern Kansas and Nebraska, southeastern South Dakota (Yankton, January 2, 1929, and the winter of 1936-37); North Dakota (Grafton, specimen collected January 24, 1905); Minnesota (frequent in the southern part); Wisconsin (occasional north to Meriden and New London); southern Michigan (Grand Rapids, Lansing, and Detroit); southern Ontario (Coldstream, Toronto, and Kingston); southern Vermont (Bennington); and Massachusetts (Boston).

_Migration._--The migrations of the red-headed woodpecker are imperfectly understood, and, as will be noted from the numerous casual winter records, individuals of this species sometimes winter north almost to the limits of the breeding range. This makes difficult the designation of early and late dates of migration. Nevertheless, the following dates may be considered representative of most seasons in that portion of the range where the species is normally migratory:

_Spring migration._--Early dates of arrival are: New Jersey--Elizabeth, February 27; New Providence, March 13; Cape May, March 27. Northwestern Pennsylvania--Beaver, April 15. New York--Penn Yan, April 3; West Brighton, April 12; Syracuse, April 14. Connecticut--Fairfield, March 2; Meriden, March 28. Massachusetts--Bernardstown, April 4; Russell, April 21. Vermont--St. Johnsbury, April 19. Maine--Lewiston, May 8; Portland, May 15. Quebec--Montreal, May 7. Ohio--Wauseon, March 7. Michigan--Saginaw, March 9; Sault Ste. Marie, May 22. Ontario--London, March 13; Hamilton, April 15; Toronto, April 26. Wisconsin--Ladysmith, April 23. Minnesota.--Redwing, March 30; St. Cloud, April 1; Hutchinson, April 14. Kansas--Fort Hays, April 11; Bendena, April 13; Harper, April 25. Nebraska--Omaha, April 29; Neligh, May 3; Scribner, May 7. South Dakota--Yankton, April 13; Vermillion, April 29; Sioux Falls, May 4. North Dakota--Jamestown, April 21; Argusville, May 8; Fargo, May 9. Manitoba--East Kildonan, May 6; Aweme, May 19. New Mexico--Glenrio, April 26. Colorado (occasionally winters)--Burlington, May 7; Lamar, May 11; Denver, May 15. Wyoming--Laramie Peak, May 2; Careyhurst, May 15; Torrington, May 17. Montana--Albion, May 19; Fort Custer, May 20.

_Fall migration._--Late dates of fall departure are: Montana--Sun River, September 5. Wyoming--Laramie, September 4; Wheatland, September 6; Panco, October 2. Colorado--Greeley, October 1; Denver;, October 21; Boulder County, October 23. New Mexico--Koehler Junction, October 24. Manitoba--Margaret, September 20; Aweme, October 8. North Dakota--Medora, September 18; Wahpeton, September 29. South Dakota--Sioux Falls, September 20; Harrison, September 28; Yankton, October 7. Nebraska--Red Cloud, October 3; Blue Springs, October 4. Kansas--Harper, October 15; Lawrence, October 18; Fort Hays, October 29. Minnesota--Hutchinson, October 20; Minneapolis, October 26. Wisconsin--Prescott, October 10; Reedsburg, October 16; and La Crosse, October 29. Northern Michigan--Sault Ste. Marie, November 15. Ontario--Toronto, September 15; Ottawa, September 18; Point Pelee, October 14. Maine--Skowhegan, October 26. Vermont--Wells River, September 24; Rutland, October 14. Massachusetts--Springfield, October 9; Boston, October 15. Connecticut--Fairfield, October 8; Hartford, October 13. Northern New York--Watertown, October 16; Geneva, October 24; Rochester, November 11. Northwestern Pennsylvania--McKeesport, October 19; Berwyn, November 8; Erie, November 17. New Jersey--Passaic, October 21; Cape May, October 21; Morristown, November 2.

An examination of the banding files in the Biological Survey adds but little information to knowledge of the migrations of this bird. Although it has been banded in fair numbers (more than 1,700 previous to July 1, 1937) the farthest recovery record is only about 80 miles south of the point of banding. There are, however, several cases of return in subsequent seasons to the banding stations.

_Casual records._--Records of this species outside its normal range are not numerous. A single specimen was taken in the Chiricahua Mountains, Ariz., in the spring of 1894; one was observed in Salt Lake City, Utah, in June 1874; and one was noted near Fortine, in northwestern Montana, on June 18, 1931.

_Egg dates._--Alabama: 12 records, April 20 to July 15; 6 records,
May 26 to June 17, indicating the height of the season.
Illinois: 19 records, May 9 to July 10; 10 records, May 19 to June 15.
Michigan: 16 records, May 9 to August 20; 8 records, May 15 to June 3.
New York: 15 records, May 21 to June 19; 8 records, May 26 to June 5.
South Carolina: 12 records, May 6 to July 2.

BALANOSPHYRA FORMICIVORA FORMICIVORA (Swainson)

ANT-EATING WOODPECKER

HABITS

The type race of the species is now restricted in its distribution to the region from south-central Texas (Kerr County and the Chisos Mountains) to eastern and southern Mexico. It differs from the other races in the width of the white frontal band, the amount of streaking on the breast and sides, and the amount of yellow in the throat patch, as well as in size. It differs from _bairdi_ and _aculeata_ in having the chest mostly streaked, at least on the median portion, instead of mostly uniform black. The white frontal patch is broader than in _angustifrons_, and the black band across the female crown is much wider. It is slightly larger than _aculeata_, and somewhat smaller than _bairdi_ but decidedly larger than _angustifrons_. Its throat patch is paler yellow than in _bairdi_ and _angustifrons_.

I cannot find anything of consequence in print relating to the habits of the race, which probably do not differ materially from the habits of the species elsewhere. There are two sets of eggs in the Thayer collection, one of six and one of five eggs, taken in Tamaulipas, Mexico, on April 18 and 22, 1908; in each case the nest is said to have been 20 feet from the ground in a pine. The measurements of these 11 eggs average 26.47 by 19.00 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure =28.1= by 19.0, 26.7 by =19.3=, =25.9= by =18.9= millimeters.

DISTRIBUTION

_Range._--Western United States, Central America, and northwestern South America; nonmigratory.

On the Pacific coast the ant-eating woodpecker ranges through the Coast and Sierra Nevada ranges =north= to southwestern Oregon (Cow Creek and Ashland). In the interior it is found =north= to northern Arizona (Hualapai Mountain, Williams, and Grand Canyon); northern New Mexico (Largo Canyon and the headwaters of the Gallina River); and southwestern Texas (Fort Davis and Kerrville). From these regions the species is found =south= through both eastern and western Mexico (including Baja California) and other Central American countries, at least to central Colombia.

Several subspecies of this woodpecker are found only in Central and South America, but three varieties occur regularly in the United States, while two others are confined to Baja California. The true ant-eating woodpecker (_B. f. formicivora_), which ranges through eastern and southern Mexico, is found also in south-central Texas (Chisos Mountains and Kerrville). Mearns’s woodpecker (_B. f. aculeata_) occupies the range in Arizona, New Mexico, and western Texas (Fort Davis) south through the Mexican States of Sonora, Chihuahua, and Durango. The California woodpecker (_B. f. bairdi_) is found in the Pacific coast region from Oregon south to northern Baja California. In this Mexican State the narrow-fronted woodpecker (_B. f. angustifrons_) is confined to the region of Cape San Lucas, while the San Pedro woodpecker (_B. f. martirensis_) is found in the northwestern part of the area nearly to the United States border.

_Egg dates._--Arizona: 9 records, May 10 to June 10.
California: 66 records, April 2 to June 15; 33 records, April 20 to
May 15, indicating the height of the season. Second and third
broods have been found in September and October.
Baja California: 4 records, May 10 to June 3.

BALANOSPHYRA FORMICIVORA BAIRDI (Ridgway)

CALIFORNIA WOODPECKER

PLATE 28

HABITS

The above common name is well chosen, as this is one of the commonest and most conspicuous birds throughout its range in California. Anyone who spends much time afield in the valleys, foothills, and canyons of southern and western California is sure to see this strikingly colored and active woodpecker making itself conspicuous among the oaks and pines; and, where one is seen, there are almost sure to be others, for it is a sociable species.

Referring to the Lassen Peak region, Grinnell, Dixon, and Linsdale (1930) say:

Two environmental factors of seeming importance for the
presence of this bird were an available supply of acorns
and wood or bark of sorts into which the birds could bore
storage holes. As to species of oak, out of the six or
more present, our impression remains that no outstanding
choice by the woodpeckers was shown. About as many of the
birds were seen among the black oaks in the vicinity of
Payne Creek P. O., as among the valley oaks around Cone’s.
However, tracks of black oaks recurred east of the main
mountain mass in the section, as along the upper Susan
River and near Eagle Lake, where no California woodpeckers
were ever seen by us. To repeat, none of this species of
woodpecker was seen by us east of about the western edge of
the yellow pine belt (Transition life-zone). * * *

Situations where individuals of this woodpecker were
observed are as follows: top of sycamore; dead sycamore
stub; in cottonwood; about clumps of fruiting mistletoe; at
tips of twigs of large valley oak; in black oak; in blue
oak; on dead upper limb of living blue oak; in orchard
tree; on isolated digger pine; in large yellow pine; at
top of dead incense cedar; on ground at roadside; on fence
post; on barn end; on telephone pole.

_Courtship._--I first became acquainted with this handsome woodpecker in the Arroyo Seco, on the outskirts of Pasadena, during the winter and spring of 1929, where I often saw these birds busy with their courtship activities in the tops of the tall sycamores. They were flying about among the treetops, making a lot of noise, two males sometimes chasing a female and showing off their brilliant colors, the white spaces in their wings and the white rumps being especially conspicuous; doubtless the red crown and yellow throat, set off by black and white, played an important part in the display. They reminded me of flickers, as they danced on, or dodged around, the branches in playful, showy antics.

_Nesting._--_Bendire_ (1895) writes:

In the more southern portions of its range nidification
commences sometimes as early as April, and somewhat later
farther north. The nesting sites are mostly excavated in
white-oak trees, both living and dead, but preferably
one of the former is selected in which the core of the
tree is decayed. It also nests occasionally in sycamores,
cottonwoods, and large willow trees, and more rarely in
telegraph poles. Both sexes assist in the excavation of
the nesting site, as well as in incubation. The entrance
hole is about 1⅗ inches in diameter, perfectly circular,
and is sometimes chiseled through 2 or 3 inches of solid
wood before the softer and decayed core is reached. The
inner cavity is gradually enlarged as it descends, and
varies from 8 to 24 inches in depth, usually being from 4
to 5 inches in diameter at the bottom, where a quantity of
fine chips are allowed to remain, on which the eggs are
deposited.

Milton P. Skinner writes to me: “On May 12, 1933, I found a nest in the main trunk of an almost dead black oak. The opening, 25 feet above the ground, seemed very small and was placed on the southeast side of the tree.

“In the Yosemite Valley, these birds nest in the trunks and large limbs of the Kellogg oaks, and their abandoned holes may be used by pygmy owls another year. As a rule, the California woodpeckers and the pygmy owls show little antagonism toward each other. In spite of this usual custom of nesting in the oaks, most of the birds I saw in the Yosemite were actually in the cottonwoods along the river. After some searching, I found at least one nest there in a short, dead stub of a cottonwood, on July 24, 1933. I saw one bird fly down and feed another that was inside, and then fly away. The hole was about 12 feet above the ground and on the north side of the stub, facing the river and away from the meadow behind it. All the trees in the vicinity were cottonwoods, but there was one oak 150 feet east of the nesting site. There were six other holes in the stub, all on the north side and from 6 to 18 feet above the ground.”

Grinnell and Storer (1924) write:

The more intensive occupancy of the Yosemite Valley
during recent years and the operations of the government
employees in promptly removing dead but standing trees
to be cut up for wood has operated to the detriment of
the woodpeckers which seek such trees for nesting holes.
So it was no surprise, in May, 1919, to find a number of
telephone or electric power poles near Redwood Lane which
had been prospected for nesting sites by woodpeckers--the
California, to judge from the size of hole and general
location. Dearth of suitable natural sites had forced the
birds to at least investigate these newly established
dead-tree substitutes. With no substitutes at all
available, the only result to be logically looked for,
as a result of man’s interference with the natural order
of affairs, would be the disappearance of woodpeckers.
The question arises here as to the justification of the
administratiton in so altering natural conditions in
National Parks as to threaten the persistence there of any
of its native denizens.

_Eggs._--The California woodpecker lays ordinarily four or five eggs; six eggs are not very rare; and as many as ten have been found in a nest, probably the product of two females. The eggs vary from short-ovate to elliptical-ovate. They are pure white, with very little or no gloss. The measurements of 52 eggs average 25.98 by 19.78 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure =29.9= by 19.0, 27.9 by =22.6=, =22.0= by 18.6, and 24.38 by =18.29= millimeters.

_Young._--The period of incubation is said to be about 14 days, in which both parents assist. Both also help to feed the young. Harriet Williams Myers (1915) made some interesting observations on a late brood of young California woodpeckers, which she found in a hole in a telephone pole, on September 11, between Los Angeles and Pasadena. She says:

In an hour’s watching the birds fed 28 times, the shortest
interval being one-half minute, the longest eight. In nine
minutes they fed eight times.

On the 15th of the month, when I believe the young must
have been about ten days old, they were fed 24 times in 58
minutes. The food given them now was mostly acorns which
the adults took from the nearby poles, sometimes digging
them out in pieces, and sometimes taking them to the top of
a flat pole where they pounded away for some minutes before
coming to the nest with their bills stuffed full of the
white bits. From this time until the young left the nest
they were fed mostly on these acorns.

One of her most interesting observations was that an apparently young bird, presumably a fully grown member of an earlier brood, joined the two parents that were feeding the young in the nest. At one time, this immature bird entered the nest, while the parents were away, apparently for the purpose of being fed by them, and remained there for some time. Meanwhile--

when the adults came to feed they did not go inside but
reached over, fed, and flew away. Three times one of them
did this, but the fourth time, when the male came, he
stood on one side of the hole and I heard him give low,
guttural notes. * * * Presently, the truant young, for such
he proved to be, appeared in the doorway and, with open
mouth, begged for just one bite. * * * But the old bird was
unrelenting and stayed in his position by the hole until
the bird inside, which was undoubtedly a former nestling,
came out and flew onto the wire above, when the adult male
went within.

Just to prove that he was not all baby, the former nestling
turned in and helped feed. Several times he went into
the hole and came directly out, and I might have thought
that he was in there in hopes of getting fed had I not
distinctly seen a big fly in his bill as he entered. Each
time as he bobbed into the hole several white bars showed
plainly on the underside of the outer tail feathers. It was
this marking of a young bird which convinced me that he was
a former nestling. In every other respect he resembled a
male California Woodpecker. Once more, during my watching,
he slipped into the nest, staying eight minutes before they
got him out. The first time it had been twenty minutes.

From the above, and from the observations of Frank A. Leach (1925), to be referred to later, it seems that the California woodpecker often, if not regularly, raises two or even three broods in a season.

_Plumages._--The young are hatched naked and blind, but the juvenal plumage is acquired before the young bird leaves the nest. In this plumage the young male closely resembles the adult male and the young female is much like the adult female in general color pattern, but the red of the crown and nape is duller and more or less mixed with dusky or black; sometimes the crown is nearly all black mixed with some scarlet feathers; the colors everywhere are duller, lacking in gloss, and the plumage is softer, less firm; the yellow of the throat is less pronounced; the streaks on the breast are less sharply defined; the tertials and scapulars are tipped with white, and there are narrow white tips on the two outer tail feathers on each side, but these tips wear away during winter, or sooner; there are at least two white spots on each web of the outer tail feather, which are in evidence all through the first year; as the juvenal wings and tail are retained until the next summer molt, birds of the year may be thus recognized; the bill is smaller and weaker than that of the adult. The molt of the juvenal contour plumage begins in August or September.

Adults have a complete annual molt between July and September, mainly in August.

_Food._--Some prominent California ornithologists have named this bird the “California acorn-storing woodpecker,” a rather long but very appropriate name, for it designates one of its most characteristic habits and names the largest item in its food supply. W. L. Dawson (1923) has this to say on the subject:

From time immemorial this bird has riddled the bark of
certain forest trees and stuffed the holes with acorns.
Speculation is still rife as to the cause or occasion or
necessity or purpose of this strange practice, but the fact
is indisputable and the evidence of it widely diffused. * * *

What he accomplishes the photographs show well enough,--the
close, methodical studding of bark or wood of any kind with
acorns, chiefly those of live-oaks, over immense areas.
The cultures, once started, are wrought upon continuously
year by year, as material avails or the colony flourishes.
Live-oaks themselves are the commonest hosts, together
with the white, or post, oak, and the black oak of the
southern counties. After these come sycamore and yellow
pine or, more rarely, eucalyptus. Telegraph and telephone
poles, gables, cornices, and, in fact, any wooden structure
where they are permitted to work, if near the source of
acorn supply, may come in for ornamentation. On a small
square-sawed telephone pole near Marysville I found sixty
acorns (and pecans purloined from a neighboring orchard)
imbedded in a space five inches wide and two feet long.
At that rate the pole carried some 1500 of these tiny
storehouses.

In Tecolote Canyon, west of Santa Barbara, there is a giant
sycamore which I count one of the handsomest examples of
Carpintero’s workmanship--an unbroken shaft, at least
forty feet high and three feet across the inlaid face,
covered with a “solid” mass of acorns totalling, say, some
20,000. Strawberry Valley in the San Jacinto Mountains
appears to be a paradise for the California Woodpecker.
Here majestic oaks (_Quercus californica_) alternate
with still more majestic pines (_Pinus ponderosa_), the
former for sustenance and the latter for storage, and the
doughty “California” is probably the most abundant bird
in the valley. The boles of the most enormous pines are
methodically riddled with their acorn-carrying niches, and
in some of the trees the work is carried through from base
to crown. In one such tree I estimated that there were
imbedded no less than 50,000 acorns.

Dr. William E. Ritter has made an intensive study of this interesting habit of the California woodpecker and has published the results of his observations and theories in three extensive papers (1921, 1922, 1938). There is much food for thought in these scholarly papers, to which the reader is referred, but space here will permit only brief quotations from or references to them. As to whether the hole drilling is injurious to the trees, he says (1921): “Although I have examined many storage pines in widely separated localities, I have never seen anything even suggestive of harm to the trees from the holes. Never, so far as I have noticed, do the holes pierce through into the deeper living layers of the bark.” He noticed that “almost without exception the nuts were inserted tip in and base out, most of them fitting the hole snugly,” having been driven in good and hard, and flush with the surface of the bark, or even countersunken below it; and that “to a certain extent the store holes are made to fit the size of the acorns they are to receive”; this latter point was discovered when he noted that, in a region where the black oak (_Quercus kelloggii_) predominated, the holes were considerably larger than they were in the live-oak region, the acorns of the black oak being sharply larger than those of the live oak. In some cases the acorns were not driven in flush with the bark, the base being left protruding somewhat and thus leaving them vulnerable to pilfering by rodents and perhaps some birds; in this connection, he says: “Conclusive evidence that nut-eating rodents (squirrels, rats) prey upon the acorns stored by the woodpeckers was first obtained on the present visit. Two trees were found on which the bark immediately around acorn holes had been gnawed by rodents, as unmistakably proved by the tooth marks. The acorns were gone from some of these holes, but not from all, thus showing that the marauders had failed in some of their efforts.”

Summarizing his first paper, he makes the following statements:

As to hole drilling: While the holes are made expressly
for the reception of acorns, many holes are probably made
which are never used, holes are made at seasons of the year
when there are no acorns to store, and large numbers of
perfectly serviceable holes seem to be abandoned even in
localities where both birds and acorns are abundant, and
new holes are being made.

As to the storing business itself: While this is
of distinct service to the food necessities of the
woodpeckers, the instinct sometimes goes wrong to the
extent of storing pebbles instead of acorns, thus defeating
entirely the purpose of the instinct. Again, large numbers
of acorns are sometimes stored, the use of which is so long
delayed that the acorns become wholly or largely unfit
for food, and this in places where the bird population
seems normal. Finally, acorns are sometimes stored in such
fashion as to make them easy prey for marauding rodents,
when with some definite foresight and a little more work
such exposure could easily be largely avoided.

In his second paper (1922), after further observations, he states[1]:

My previous surmise that the birds are more interested in
the grubs contained in the acorns than in the acorn meats
has not been substantiated. What I could make out while
in camp among them, by watching them gather and eat their
breakfasts, was to the effect that good uninhabited acorns
were chiefly used. Again and again birds were seen to pick
nuts from the top-most branches of the black oak, fly
with them in their beaks to some approximately horizontal
surface of a large limb on a pine or another oak, make
the surface aid them somehow (I never could see exactly
how, as the “breakfast tables” were, of course, all on the
upper surfaces of the limbs, and too high for my vision)
in breaking and tearing open the nuts. Apparently cracks
and chinks in the table top serve as holders for the acorns
while they are being opened and eaten. This is indicated
by the fact that dead and partly decayed trees or parts of
trees were mostly used. I saw no indication of the feet
being used in handling the nuts. The litter on the ground
under the dining trees, consisting of shell fragments
and lost bits of meat, indicated grubless nuts almost
entirely. This result as to the use of mast is in agreement
with Beal’s examination of the stomach contents of our
woodpecker.

Charles W. Michael (1926), in the Yosemite Valley, made the interesting discovery that the California woodpecker has been known to learn by experience and to show some intelligence in its acorn storing. For a number of years when acorns were abundant no extensive storing was done, yet the woodpeckers lived in the valley all winter. Then came a lean year, with no acorn crop, when no storing _could_ be done; and that winter the woodpeckers were forced to leave the valley for lack of food. The following year there was a bountiful crop of acorns, and the woodpeckers, having learned by experience, were busy filling up their storehouses. “From the above observations,” he says, “one might conclude that an abundance of acorns is not directly responsible for prodigious storing. In a land of plenty the necessity of laying aside stores for future consumption is obviated. It is the barren years that teach the value of thrift. Intelligence plus experience may well have been the cause of the excessive storing of this year. A few of the more intelligent woodpeckers that were forced last winter to abandon the valley for lack of food are now preparing against the next lean year.”

Claude Gignoux (1921) reports finding almonds stored in the bark of an oak tree on a ranch near Marysville, Calif., as well as in the side of a barn.