Chapter V: A. Alderson (1890) published the following interesting note: “Last

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

DISTRIBUTION

_Range._--Northern and Central America; not regularly migratory.

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

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

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

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

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

DRYOBATES VILLOSUS SEPTENTRIONALIS (Nuttall)

NORTHERN HAIRY WOODPECKER

HABITS

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

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

In the valleys it is most numerous, during summer,
in forests containing a large percentage stand of
western larch (_Larix occidentalis_). The next trees
in attractiveness seem to be Douglas fir (_Pseudotsuga
taxifolia_), western yellow pine (_Pinus ponderosa_), and
Engelmann spruce (_Picea engelmanni_), in the order named.
In the Hudsonian zone it frequents trees of white-bark pine
(_Pinus albicaulis_) and alpine larch (_Larix lyallii_).
The species is noticeably rare or absent in forests
containing nearly pure stands of western white pine (_Pinus
monticola_), arborvitae (_Thuja plicata_), or lodgepole
pine (_Pinus contorta_), except where the woods have been
logged or injured by fire.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

DRYOBATES VILLOSUS AUDUBONI (Swainson)

SOUTHERN HAIRY WOODPECKER

PLATE 5

HABITS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

_Behavior._--The same observer says:

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

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

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

DRYOBATES VILLOSUS HARRISI (Audubon)

HARRIS’S WOODPECKER

PLATES 4, 5

HABITS

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

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

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

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

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

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

_Courtship._--Theed Pearse (1934) gives us the following interesting description of the courtship display of this woodpecker:

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

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

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

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