_Dryobates scalaris bairdi_, which was then understood to be the
resident bird of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. But when Dr. H. C.
Oberholser (1911b) revised the _scalaris_ group, the name _bairdi_
was restricted to the bird of central Mexico, and the Texas bird
was described, as a new subspecies, under the above name. It was
characterized as follows:
Resembling _Dryobates scalaris cactophilus_, but male
smaller; upper parts lighter, the white bars wider, the
black bars narrower, and with more white on pileum; and
sides of breast less often _streaked_ (mostly spotted). * * *
This new subspecies differs from _Dryobates scalaris
bairdi_, from Hidalgo, much as does _Dryobates scalaris
cactophilus_, except that it is smaller, and still more
extensively white on all the upper parts.
This race reaches its extreme development in Texas; and
specimens from central Tamaulipas and central Nuevo
Leon are not so light above, showing a tendency toward
_Dryobates scalaris bairdi_. They are also somewhat more
smoky below. There is, however, no difference in size
between examples from Texas and Tamaulipas.
The range of the Texas woodpecker extends northward into southeastern
Colorado and southward into southern Tamaulipas. George Finlay Simmons
(1925) says that in Texas it is “rather general in distribution and in
choice of habitat; somewhat open post oak woods and oak upland gravel
terraces; mesquite forests; hackberry shade trees in town; mesquite
association pasturelands; open woods not far from water; marginal
timber along streams. In the hills, cottonwoods and oaks along stream
bottoms; wooded slopes of gorges. In winter, leafless city shade
hackberry trees.”
The Texas woodpecker is widely distributed and fairly common all over
Texas, except in the extreme eastern and extreme western portions;
it is a well known and familiar bird, just as our eastern downy
woodpecker is in the East; it is locally known as the “Texan sapsucker”
or “ladder-backed woodpecker.” Most of its habits are similar to
those of the cactus woodpecker, but it seems to enjoy a somewhat more
diversified habitat and is more inclined to forage and nest in larger
trees; it is not so strictly confined to the deserts and their environs.
_Nesting._--Mr. Simmons (1925) says that the nest is located from “4 to
25, average 12, feet from ground, in rotten stubs or dead and partly
decayed branches of oak, mesquite, hackberry, and willow trees, usually
alongside lake, river, creek, or ravine; when suitable trees are not
to be found, nests in cedar fence posts or telegraph poles along
roadsides; when in mesquite tree on mesquite-covered prairie, entrance
of cavity on under side of low, drooping limb. * * * Entrance diameter
1.50. Depth of cavity 7 to 8, rarely 10.”
_Eggs._--The Texas woodpecker lays 2 to 6 eggs, Usually 4 or 5,
rarely as many as 7. These are indistinguishable from the eggs of
the cactus woodpecker. The measurements of 51 eggs average 20.50 by
15.83 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure =22.86=
by 15.75, 20.32 by =17.02=, =17.27= by 15.49, and 19.05 by =14.73=
millimeters.
_Food._--Mr. Simmons (1925) says that it “searches high up on the
knotty trunks of oak trees in open groves for larvae and eggs of
injurious wood-boring insects, for the adults of similar as well as
other insects, and for weevils and ants.”
_Voice._--Simmons (1925) says that this is “usually a thin,
high-pitched, shrill _cheek_; _tcheek, queep_ or _queep-queep_,
uttered as the bird gives a hop in its progress up the
tree-trunk. Sometimes an incredibly rapid, shrill, ringing, even,
not-so-high-pitched _cheeky-cheeky-cheeky-cheeky-cheeky_ or
_tchee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-deet_; less commonly, _chickp,
chickp, chick-chick-chick-chick-chick-chick-chick-chick_. Drums rapidly
with its bill on dead limb of tree at any time of year.”
DISTRIBUTION
_Range._--Southwestern United States, Mexico, and British Honduras;
nonmigratory.
The range of this woodpecker extends =north= to southern California
(Hesperia and Needles); southern Nevada (Upper Cottonwood Springs);
southern Utah (Virgin River Valley); and probably southeastern
Colorado (Swink). =East= to probably southeastern Colorado (Swink and
Springfield); western Oklahoma (Kenton and Hollis); Texas (San Angelo,
Kerrville, Boerne, San Antonio, Corpus Christi, and Brownsville);
Tamaulipas (Presas and Ciudad Victoria); Yucatan (Chichen-Itza);
Quintana Roo (Cozumel Island); and British Honduras (Manatee Lagoon and
Ycacos Lagoon). =South= to British Honduras (Ycacos Lagoon); Jalisco
(Zapotlan); Nayarit (Tres Marias Islands); and Baja California (Cape
San Lucas). =West= to Baja California (Cape San Lucas, San Jose del
Cabo, El Sauz, San Fernando, and Cocopah); and southern California
(Paint Canyon, White Water, and Hesperia).
The range as above outlined applies to the entire species, which has,
however, been divided into 15 or more subspecies or geographic races.
Most of these, including the typical variety (_Dryobates scalaris
scalaris_), are found only in regions south of the Rio Grande. The four
races found in North America are distributed as follows: The Texas
woodpecker (_D. s. symplectus_) is found from southeastern Colorado
south and east through east-central Texas, to Coahuila, Tamaulipas,
and Nuevo Leon. The cactus woodpecker (_D. s. cactophilus_) ranges
from western Texas through New Mexico, Arizona, and southern Utah and
Nevada south to northern Durango. The western edge of the range of
this race cuts across southeastern California and northeastern Baja
California. The San Fernando woodpecker (_D. s. eremicus_) is found
in northern Baja California except for the northeastern part. The San
Lucas woodpecker (_D. s. lucasanus_) occurs in southern part of Baja
California north to about latitude 29° N.
_Egg dates._--California: 7 records, April 11 to May 9.
Baja California: 12 records, April 16 to June 2.
Texas: 45 records, April 14 to June 22; 23 records, April 20 to
May 7, indicating the height of the season.
DRYOBATES SCALARIS LUCASANUS (Xantus)
SAN LUCAS WOODPECKER
HABITS
The ladder-backed woodpecker of the southern half of the peninsula
of Baja California, Mexico, has long been recognized as a distinct
subspecies under the above name. It inhabits the Lower Austral deserts
from Cape San Lucas north to about latitude 29° N. William Brewster
(1902) says: “Mr. Frazar considers this woodpecker ‘rather common and
generally distributed in the cape region, except on the mountains,
where it was not met with.’ He found it most numerous about La Paz, but
did not see it anywhere to the northward of that place during his trip
along the Gulf coast.”
This is a smaller bird than _Dryobates scalaris eremicus_ from the
northern half of Baja California; both upper and lower surfaces are
lighter in color, with the white bars on the back broader and with the
sides of the breast spotted. Mr. Brewster (1902) writes:
All the characters which have been proposed for this
Woodpecker are shown by the large series before me to be
subject to much variation, but this, as in the case of
_Melanerpes angustifrons_, is confined within limits which
do not overlap, if, indeed, they quite reach those of the
bird’s nearest allies. The restriction of the black on the
outer tail feathers is perhaps its best distinguishing
feature, although this is not at all uniform, for many of
my specimens have three complete dark bars crossing both
webs of the outer tail feathers, while in one a fourth bar
is only broken by a small space near the middle of the
feather. The width of the dark bars on the back is also
variable, although these bars are usually wider than in any
of the allied forms. The feet average larger than those
of _bairdi_, but they are by no means _always_ larger. A
difference which I do not find mentioned in descriptions,
but which is shown by my series to be quite as constant as
most of the characters that have been proposed, is that the
white spots on the top of the head are much larger and more
numerous than in _bairdi_, while the red is less vivid and
more nearly restricted to the crown and occiput.
Griffing Bancroft (1930) writes of this woodpecker, in central Lower
California, near the northern limit of its supposed range:
This little denizen of brush and thick undergrowth requires
a heavy stand of low cactuses in which to feed and rest.
It occurs from the shores of the Gulf to the mouth of José
María Cañon. Though the rarest of the resident Picidae
it is still fairly common. Its nesting instincts are
quite distinct from other _Dryobates scalaris_. They,
similarly situated, would utilize sahuaro, it is true, but
they would also be prone to add such substitutes as dry
mescal stalks, telephone poles, tree yucca and mesquite
and would, more often than not, chose one of these other
sites by preference. But _lucasanus_ confines itself to
the cardón, at least in the district we were studying,
selecting a single-stalked giant cactus and drilling its
hole very near the top of the plant. As a result the
nest-cavity is rather uniformly twenty feet above ground.
The entrance hole is at the top of a cavity typically five
inches in diameter by fifteen in depth. No foreign material
is brought in for a nest. The eggs lie on the chips that
fall in the process of excavating.
The number of eggs in a clutch is two, three, or rarely
four. The first two weeks in May find almost all the San
Lucas Woodpeckers at the peak of laying. After the middle
of the month nests with young may be expected. The parent
bird will ordinarily flush, especially if the cardón be
tapped, but it is not very nervous about its home. It is
too busy with family duties to waste much attention on
strangers.
The eggs are similar to those of the other subspecies. Bancroft (1930)
gives the average measurements of 23 eggs as 22.9 by 18.1 millimeters.
The measurements of 10 other eggs average 21.30 by 16.61 millimeters;
the eggs, in this series, showing the four extremes measure =24.40=
by 18.70, 23.70 by =18.80=, =19.50= by 16.80, and 21.43 by =15.42=
millimeters.
DRYOBATES SCALARIS CACTOPHILUS Oberholser
CACTUS WOODPECKER
HABITS
The ladder-backed woodpeckers are quite widely distributed in the
Southwestern United States and in nearly all Mexico and in British
Honduras, chiefly in the Lower Austral and Tropical Zones. When Dr.
Harry C. Oberholser (1911b) wrote his revision of this group, he split
the species _Dryobates scalaris_ into 15 subspecies, 9 of which he
described and named as new subspecies. Only two of these subspecies
are found within the limits of the United States, and only two in Baja
California, giving us four on our Check-List.
The name _Dryobates scalaris bairdi_, which was for a long time used
to designate the ladder-backed woodpeckers of the United States, was
restricted by Oberholser to a Mexican form. He gave as the characters
of _cactophilus_, “much like _Dryobates scalaris eremicus_, but
smaller, particularly the tail and bill; lower surface lighter,
laterally almost always _streaked_ with black; upper parts lighter--the
black bars on back and scapulars narrower; wing-quills with larger
spots and broader bars of white; outer long rectrices with exterior
webs barred throughout with black; black bars on posterior lower
surface narrower.”
Ridgway (1914) compares it with _symplectus_, the Texas bird, as
“slightly larger, and with black bars on back, etc., decidedly broader.”
The cactus woodpecker ranges, according to the 1931 A. O. U.
Check-List, from “central western Texas through New Mexico and Arizona
to extreme northeastern Lower California and southeastern California,
north to extreme southern Nevada and southwestern Utah, and south to
northern Durango.” It frequents the deserts, or the borders of the
deserts, and the lower slopes of the mountains in the Sonoran Zone, a
hot, dry region where there are no trees of any size and where this is
about the only species of woodpecker found. We never found it in the
giant-cactus, or saguaro, region, where it seemed to be replaced by
the noisy Gila woodpecker and Mearns’s gilded flicker. W. Leon Dawson
(1923) says:
Of course it must not be understood that the Cactus
Woodpecker tries to live in the central wastes of the
desert; for however much it may forage over the creosote
and cholla patches, on occasion, it requires something of
more ample girth for a nesting site. Hence its breeding
range is confined to the more fruitful upper edges of
the Lower Sonoran zone, and to the moister bottoms. In
the former situation the dried stalks of the agave and
the lesser yucca (_whipplei_), or of the Joshua tree
(_Yucca arborescens_), and the Mohave Yucca offer asylum.
In the valley of the Colorado, fearing no rivalry from
_D. pubescens turati_, the Cactus Woodpecker is able to
monopolize the willows which grow so rankly along the
lagoons.
Referring to Arizona, Harry S. Swarth (1904) says: “This woodpecker is
seldom seen above 5,500 feet, and rarely ventures into the canyons. On
the plains below, wherever there is brush or trees, and all along the
San Pedro River it is very common, as in fact, I have found it in all
similar places I have visited in southern Arizona.”
Swarth says elsewhere (1929):
In southeastern Arizona, east of the Santa Rita Mountains,
the vast areas of prairie land are for the most part
unsuitable to this species. Wherever even a scanty growth
of chaparral has found a foothold, though, the Cactus
Woodpecker is pretty sure to occur, for it does not require
large trees. Along the streams and washes in this same
area, as elsewhere, it does frequent the sycamores and
other larger growths, but these do not form the preferred
habitat. In the lowlands west of the Santa Rita Mountains
this woodpecker is in the surroundings that suit it best.
It does not frequent the giant cactus (I do not believe
that there is a known instance of its nesting in one), but
stays nearer the ground, in cholla cactus, creosote bush,
catclaw or other low-growing vegetation.
_Nesting._--Major Bendire (1895) writes:
In southern New Mexico and Arizona it nests sometimes in
the flowering stems of the agave plant and also in yucca
trees, and I have found it nesting on Rillito Creek,
Arizona, in a small dead willow sapling not over 3½ inches
in diameter. The cavity was about 12 feet from the ground
and 10 inches in depth, and the entrance hole a trifle over
1½ inches in diameter. This nest was found on June 8, 1872,
and contained only two eggs, in which incubation was about
one-half advanced; the eggs laid on fine chips. The nesting
sites are placed at various distances from the ground, from
3 to 30, usually from 6 to 14 feet. Dead branches of trees
or partly decayed ones seem to be preferred to live ones.
* * * It nests by preference in mesquite trees, one of our
hardest woods, and it must require a long time to chisel
out a nesting site in one of these trees. While it is true
that the heart is usually more or less decayed, the birds
have first to work through an inch or two of solid wood
which is almost impervious to a sharp ax.
Mrs. Florence M. Bailey (1928) says that in New Mexico the nests are
“from 2 to 30 feet from the ground in holes in mesquite, screw bean,
palo verde, hackberry, and China trees, willows, cottonwoods, walnuts,
oaks, and other trees, telegraph poles, fence posts, and stalks of
agave, yucca, and cactus.”
While collecting with Frank C. Willard, in southern Arizona, we found
the cactus woodpecker fairly common about Tombstone and near Fairbanks
on the San Pedro River. Near the former place, one nest was 6½ feet up
in a fence post; the cavity was about 10 inches deep and 3¼ inches in
diameter at the bottom; another nest was in a cavity 12 inches deep in
the dry stalk of a mescal about 5 feet from the ground. In the valley
of the San Pedro River, we found a nest about 12 feet from the ground
in a willow stub; and another nest was located in a stump of a willow
beside a fence; it was only 6 feet up in the solid part of the stub,
and so well concealed behind a bunch of sprouts that we had passed it
many times without seeing it.
Mr. Willard (1918) says:
“Along the San Pedro River the Cactus Woodpecker
(_Dryobates s. cactophilus_) is the only one nesting at all
commonly. In the lines of willows bordering the irrigation
ditches and in all the small groups found along the river
banks, I had quite a list of pairs whose nests I could
count upon finding within certain circumscribed areas.
They exhibited individual characteristics. One pair never
dug its nest lower than twenty feet from the ground and
usually selected a site that overhung the water. Another
liked short stubs not over five or six feet tall. Another
was partial to fence posts. While these selections were
not invariably followed they were so usual that I always
began my search by examining all the available sites of
that character before looking at others and was usually
successful in my first search.”
_Eggs._--The cactus woodpecker lays 2 to 6 eggs, usually 4 or 5.
These are usually oval or short oval, sometimes elliptical-oval or
elliptical-ovate. They are pure white and more or less glossy. The
measurements of 18 eggs average 21.48 by 16.18 millimeters; the eggs
showing the four extremes measure =23.02= by 16.67, 22.5 by =17.0=, and
=19.2= by =15.1= millimeters. Bendire (1895) says that incubation lasts
for about 13 days and is shared by both sexes.
_Plumages._--The young are probably hatched naked (I have not seen
any), as is the case with other woodpeckers, but the juvenal plumage is
acquired before the young bird leaves the nest. This first plumage is
much like that of the adult male, but the sexes are not quite alike.
In the young male, the forehead, sides of the occiput, and the nape
are uniform black; only the crown is scarlet, more or less dotted with
white. The young female is similar to the young male, except that there
is usually much less scarlet on the crown, often only a few scarlet
tips. In both sexes the back is barred with dull black and grayish
white, instead of the clear black and white of the adult; the under
parts are “vinaceous-buff,” faintly spotted on the sides and flanks;
the plumage is softer and the markings are not so clearly defined as
in the adult. Just how long this plumage is worn I have not been able
to determine, but July birds show signs of body molt and an increasing
amount of the clear black streaks of the adult plumage on the sides and
flanks. Probably a plumage that is practically adult is assumed by the
first fall at the latest. Adults apparently have a complete annual molt
in summer, mainly in August.
_Food._--The cactus woodpecker lives mainly on the larvae of
wood-boring beetles, which it gleans from the trunks and branches
of trees. It also eats the larvae of the coddling moth and other
Lepidoptera, ants, caterpillars, and cotton worms. It usually forages
at low elevations on small trees, shrubs, and various cacti and is
often seen feeding on the ground. Major Bendire (1895) says that this
woodpecker, “like several other species, is very fond of the ripe
figlike fruit of the giant cactus, and I have met it more than once in
Sahuarito Pass, Arizona, eating it on the ground.”
_Voice._--Ralph Hoffmann (1927) compares the notes of the cactus
woodpecker with those of the downy woodpecker and says that “the common
notes are a single high-pitched _tschik_ or a longer rattling call with
a slight fall toward the end. It often calls as it flies, and like
other woodpeckers drums in spring on dry limbs.” Dawson (1923) refers
to the notes as “his _plink, plink_, and his long rolling chirrup.”
_Field marks._--A small woodpecker with the upper parts distinctly and
extensively barred with black and white is either one of the races
of _Dryobates scalaris_, commonly called ladderbacks, or _Dryobates
nuttalli_. These two species are very much alike in superficial
appearance and might be easily confused; but fortunately their ranges
do not overlap, except to a slight extent in some of the mountain
passes of southeastern California. Mr. Dawson (1923) says that the
cactus woodpecker “is browner above, more strikingly, heavily, and
numerously barred, with less of black on sides of head, and red (of
adult male) pervading crown as well as nape.”
_Winter._--W. E. D. Scott (1886) says that these woodpeckers “are at
times gregarious. I particularly noticed this in December, 1885, when
I frequently met the species in flocks of from four to a dozen, on the
plains at an altitude of 3,000 feet.”
DRYOBATES SCALARIS EREMICUS Oberholser
SAN FERNANDO WOODPECKER
HABITS
This race of ladder-backed woodpeckers occupies the northern half of
Baja California, north of the range of _Dryobates scalaris lucasanus_,
with which it intergrades about midway the peninsular. It is described
by Dr. H. C. Oberholser (1911b) as “similar to _Dryobates scalaris
lucasanus_, but larger; lower surface darker; upper parts darker, the
white bars on back averaging narrower and less regular, the black bars
wider; black bars on posterior lower parts averaging somewhat wider.”
Very little seems to have appeared in print about this woodpecker,
but, as it lives in a similar habitat to that occupied by the San
Lucas woodpecker, it probably does not differ materially from it in
habits. It lives in the lowland, desert regions and nests in the giant
cactus. Both races are said to be rather shy. It is replaced in extreme
northwestern Baja California by Nuttall’s woodpecker and in the extreme
northeast by the cactus woodpecker.
Griffing Bancroft (1930) states that the measurements of nine eggs of
this subspecies average 21.7 by 16.7 millimeters.
DRYOBATES NUTTALLI (Gambel)
NUTTALL’S WOODPECKER
PLATES 11, 12
HABITS
Though closely resembling, superficially, the ladder-backed woodpeckers
of the _scalaris_ group, Nuttall’s woodpecker is a very distinct
species; the ranges of the two species come together at several points
but do not overlap; and the habitats of the two are in different
types of environment. The 1931 A. O. U. Check-List gives the range
of _nuttalli_ as “Upper Austral Zone west of the southern Cascade
Mountains and the Sierra Nevada from southern Oregon to northwestern
Lower California.”
W. Leon Dawson (1923) described the haunts of this woodpecker very
well, as follows:
Although one who is forming the acquaintance of the Nuttall
Woodpecker soon learns where to look for him, his range
is hard to characterize in terms of associations. Upper
Sonoran, foothill, oak, live oak, chaparral, deciduous
trees bordering narrow stream beds--all these apply to
_nuttalli_ well enough, but they are not exhaustive, save
for the first, which is all inclusive. Within Upper Sonoran
limits it is, perhaps, easier to tell where he will not be
found; thus, not (or only occasionally) in pine timber;
not in stands of pure willow (which are given over to _D.
pubescens turati_); not in orchards, nor about cultures of
any sort; not, most decidedly, “nesting in giant cactus.”
Least of all, is it “seldom found along streams,” as one
precocious authority avers. A narrow canyon whose floor
harbors sycamores and alders and bay trees, nourished by a
purling stream, and whose sides are lined with live oaks
which run up into ceanothus chaparral, is precisely the
best place to look for _D. nuttalli_.
_Nesting._--Major Bendire (1895) quotes the following contribution from
B. T. Gault: