in the welfare of the forests and the lives of the little furred
and feathered denizens of the woods. It is a well-known fact that
woodpeckers are most useful in guarding the living trees and destroying
the insect pests that injure them; but Grinnell and Storer (1924) have
called our attention to the fact that woodpeckers in general, and the
white-headed woodpecker in particular, contribute, by their excessive
drilling of nest holes, “rather directly toward bringing down the
standing dead timber.” They continue:
Drilling by woodpeckers results in an increase in the
number of entrances through which insects may get at
the heart wood of a tree and thus hasten its ultimate
disintegration. Water, also, is thus afforded an easier
entrance and this hastens decay. Eventually each and every
tree must yield its place in the forest to seedlings. The
woodpeckers hasten this process of replacement, once the
tree is dead.
Many of the wood-inhabiting animals depend upon this
woodpecker to furnish them convenient nest holes
or retreats. We have found mountain chickadees and
slender-billed nuthatches incubating their own eggs
in holes drilled in earlier years by the white-headed
woodpecker; a Sierra flying squirrel was found occupying an
old white-head’s hole. Probably, tree-dwelling chipmunks
and perhaps California pigmy owls also occupy holes of this
woodpecker.
DISTRIBUTION
_Range._--Pacific coast of the United States; occurring rarely in
southern British Columbia; nonmigratory.
The range of the white-headed woodpecker extends =north= to Washington
(Methow River and probably Fort Colville); and northern Idaho (Fort
Sherman). =East= to western Idaho (Fort Sherman and Grangeville);
eastern Oregon (Hurricane Creek, Powder River Mountains, Anthony, and
Camp Harney); western Nevada (Carson); and eastern California (Bijou,
Yosemite Valley, Pyramid Peak, San Bernardino Mountains, and Cuyamaca
Mountains). =South= to southern California (Cuyamaca Mountains and
Mount Pinos). =West= to the western slopes of the Sierra Nevadas,
Calif. (Mount Pinos, Bear Valley, Fyffe, Butte Lake, and Mount Shasta);
western Oregon (Pinehurst, Foley Creek, and The Dalles); and western
Washington (Kalama, Cle Elum, and Methow River).
The species has been separated into two subspecies, the northern
white-headed woodpecker (_Dryobates a. albolarvatus_), occupying most
of the range south to the southern end of the Sierra Nevadas, and the
southern white-headed woodpecker (_D. a. gravirostris_), found in the
mountain ranges of southern California.
_Casual records._--A specimen collected near Point Bonita, Marin
County, Calif., on July 20, 1932, is the only coastal record in that
State. There is, however, an old record for Grays Harbor, Wash.
(previous to 1892), which cannot now be confirmed.
In the Provincial Museum at Victoria, British Columbia, there is an
unlabeled specimen said to have been collected in the Similkameen
Valley. Two have been collected at Okanagan, British Columbia, one on
December 20, 1911, and the other on January 24, 1914.
_Egg dates._--California: 53 records, April 24 to June 16; 27 records,
May 22 to June 7, indicating the height of the season.
DRYOBATES ALBOLARVATUS GRAVIROSTRIS (Grinnell)
SOUTHERN WHITE-HEADED WOODPECKER
HABITS
Dr. Joseph Grinnell (1902), in describing and naming the white-headed
woodpecker of the mountain ranges of southern California, gave as its
characters: “Similar to _Xenopicus albolarvatus_ but bill much heavier,
and size in general slightly greater.” He named it as a distinct
species, on the theory that “the material at hand does not justify
subspecific treatment of these two forms. Geographical continuity of
ranges possibly exists; but it seems quite as likely that there is a
broad hiatus in the vicinity of Tehachapi Pass, whence I can find no
record of the white-headed woodpecker.”
The range of this form includes the San Gabriel, San Bernardino, San
Jacinto, Santa Rosa, and Cuyamaca Mountains in southern California.
Dr. Grinnell (1908) found this woodpecker rather scarce in the San
Bernardino Mountains, and says: “They were seen only in the Transition
zone, none being observed above the fir belt, and but very few down
into pure yellow pine tracts. In the vicinity of Fish creek, 6,500
feet, a few pairs were breeding in June. On July 5, 1905, I found a
nesting hole seven feet up in a dead pine stub, which contained four
half-fledged young. We did not see the species anywhere higher than
8,000 feet, except on the south slope of Sugarloaf, where on July 11,
1906, one was seen among the silver firs at about 9,000 feet altitude.
About Bluff lake they were more common than anywhere else, and a few
were seen on the northern slopes of Sugarloaf at about 8,000 feet, in
August.”
W. L. Dawson (1923) writes: “In the San Jacinto Mountains, where these
white-heads outnumber all other woodpeckers combined, our attention was
drawn, on the 6th day of June, by a male who tittered anxiously as we
stumbled along the rough trail. We camped on the prospect immediately,
but it took a full hour to trace the ‘damage’ to a hole fifty feet up
in a yellow pine stub, which was three feet through at the base. * * *
“We found a clean-cut round hole, one and a half inches in diameter,
which gave admission to a cavity ten inches deep, and which had for its
outer wall only the thick bark of the tree.”
Frank Stephens wrote to Major Bendire (1895): “_Xenopicus albolarvatus_
is a resident of the pine regions of southern California, but is not
common excepting possibly in a few localities. I have never observed
it below the pines. I have taken incubating birds in June in the
Cuyamaca Mountains at altitudes of about 7,000 feet. The nesting sites
here were in very large dead pine trees and inaccessible.”
This woodpecker seems to show a tendency to nest, at least
occasionally, at greater heights above ground than its northern
relative, but otherwise its habits seem to be very similar.
The eggs are similar to those of the northern race. The measurements of
20 eggs average 24.67 by 18.60 millimeters; the eggs showing the four
extremes measure =26.70= by 19.50, 25.60 by =19.70=, and =22.62= by
=16.67= millimeters.
PICOÏDES ARCTICUS (Swainson)
ARCTIC THREE-TOED WOODPECKER
PLATES 15, 16
HABITS
Although not found in the strictly Arctic, treeless regions, this bird
is probably well named, for its range as a whole averages farther north
than that of any other woodpecker except _P. tridactylus_. It is a bird
of the boreal forests of spruces and firs, ranging as far north in
Alaska and northern Canada as these trees grow, and extending its range
southward throughout the Canadian Zone into the Northern United States
and farther southward in some of the higher mountain ranges.
In the eastern portion of its range this woodpecker seems to prefer the
dense virgin forests of spruces and balsam fir, but it nests mainly
in the more open windfalls or burned-over clearings where there are
plenty of dead, standing trees in which to excavate its nest. In New
York State, near the southern limit of its breeding range, a typical
locality is thus described by Laurence Achilles (1906): “At three
thousand feet or more above the sea, in the denser spruce and balsam
forests of the Adirondacks, the Arctic three-toed woodpecker is fairly
common. * * *
“The trees near the nest were chiefly spruces, with a few balsams and
birches scattered among them. The birds had selected a rather open
place for their nesting-site, as, within a radius of ten yards from
their nest, there were several windfalls and dead spruces. The ground
was carpeted with moss, while linnea, clintonia, wood-sorrel and
bunchberry were blossoming in profusion near the base of the tree.”
In the Midwestern States and Provinces, the Arctic three-toed shows a
decided preference for tamarack swamps, especially where these have
been burned over, leaving a few dead or dying trees still standing;
these trees not only furnish an abundant food supply but offer many
convenient nesting sites. Into such attractive habitats these birds
sometimes congregate to form small breeding colonies.
The Weydemeyers (1928) say that in northwestern Montana this woodpecker
“is found most frequently in Transition zone woods that have been
logged or burned over. In virgin forests it occurs sparingly in yellow
pine woods at low elevations; more commonly in mixed broad-leaf and
conifer, and Douglas fir, associations; and rarely in alpine fir and
lodgepole pine woods of the higher mountains, in the Canadian zone. Its
favorite feeding trees are Douglas fir and western larch.”
_Nesting._--Philipp and Bowdish (1919) found four or five nests of the
Arctic three-toed woodpecker in Northumberland County, New Brunswick,
in May and June 1917. Most of the nests were in living balsam firs with
dead hearts, but one was “in a dead maple stub, near the edge of a
large burnt barren, and a short distance from the edge of mixed woods.”
This was “at a height of about ten feet. The cavity measured 10½ inches
from the lower edge of entrance to bottom. The entrance measured 1⅝
inches in height and 1¾ inches in width.” They say that--
apparently nest sites are selected indiscriminately, in
dead stubs in open cleared ground or burnt barrens, and
in the woods, where nests are often in dead-hearted live
trees. The birds have a remarkably strong attachment for
their nests, as evidenced by re-laying in nest holes
from which eggs had been removed, and their disregard of
the immediate presence of intruders. The male evidently
performs his share of the work of incubation, as well as
care of young. New nest holes are apparently dug each year,
and these may not be in the immediate vicinity of nests of
the previous year. The site selected tends to be low, only
one nest having been noted at a height of over ten feet,
while one, as noted, was as low as two feet. Entrances to
nest holes are strongly beveled at the lower edge, forming
a sort of “door-step,” and more or less at sides and even
top. While this is true in some cases with the Northern
Hairy and some other woodpecker excavations which we have
examined, it has not proved so frequent or pronounced. With
experience, one can usually identify the nest hole of this
species with comparative certainty, by this one feature.
Dr. Harrison F. Lewis watched a pair of these woodpeckers excavating
their nesting hole on May 27, 1936, in some second-growth woods,
chiefly spruce and fir, in Saguenay County, Quebec; he says in his
notes: “The Arctic three-toed woodpeckers had a partly excavated nest
cavity at a height of about 14 feet on the northwest side of a dead
birch stub in a clearing. The stub was about 20 feet high and 1 foot
in diameter and stood about 10 feet from the border of the clearing.
The nest cavity was guarded almost continually by one bird of the
pair. The bird on guard clung to the lower edge of the opening of this
cavity. Nine other woodpecker-made openings, many of them only partly
completed, were to be seen in the same stub.
“I watched the three-toed woodpeckers, from partial concealment near
at hand, for an hour and 25 minutes. Each one of them would spend a
period of 15 to 20 minutes at their nest cavity, then be relieved by
the other. The periods spent at the cavity by the male were somewhat
longer than those spent there by the female. While the male was at
the cavity, he spent much of his time in excavating, with only his
tail and the region of his rump projecting from the opening, but at
intervals of a few seconds he would withdraw his body and head from the
cavity and look about him. When he was excavating, very little noise
could be heard. He spent some time in throwing out chips and some time
in resting. When the female was at the cavity, she did very little
excavating, so little that it seemed to be a mere gesture. On one
occasion, after she had been clinging to the edge of the opening for 10
minutes, she drummed repeatedly, but not loudly, on the outside of the
stub beside the opening. I wondered if she were signaling to the male
to come to relieve her in guarding the cavity. After 5 minutes of such
intermittent drumming, she was relieved at the opening by the male.”
Mr. Achilles (1906) describes the nest he found in the Adirondacks as
follows:
The hole, which was in a spruce tree, faced north by
northeast, and was twenty-seven feet one inch from the
ground. The spruce retained all its branches and some
twigs, although it had been dead for some time.
The following dimensions of the hole were taken after the
young had left their nest. The entrance to the hole was
two inches wide and one and five-eighths inches high. From
the outside of the hole, straight through over the top of
the nest to the back of the hole, the measurement was five
and three-fourths inches. The outside shell, including the
bark, was one and three-fourths inches thick. The diameter
of the nest opening was three and one-fourth inches, while
the diameter of the hole on the inside at the bottom of the
shaft, was four and five-eighths inches. The depth of the
hole was nine and one-eighth inches.
Dr. C. Hart Merriam sent Major Bendire (1895) some notes on two nests
that he found in the Adirondacks, as follows:
The water of Seventh Lake, Fulton Chain, had been raised by
a dam at the foot of Sixth Lake, flooding a considerable
area along the inlet, and the trees killed by the overflow
stood in about 6 feet of water. In 1883 the place was
first visited by me, May 27. Both species of Three-toed
Woodpeckers (_Picoides americanus_ and _arcticus_) were
tolerably common, and one new nest of each was found.
That of _P. arcticus_ contained one fresh egg. The nest
was 10 inches deep, and the opening within 5 feet of the
surface of the water. It was in a dead spruce, 10 inches
in diameter. * * * The place was next visited, June 2, but
the date proved still too early. Several unfinished nests
of _P. americanus_ were found, and one completed nest with
four fresh eggs of _P. arcticus_. Like the one found on my
first visit, it was in a dead spruce and about 5 feet above
the water. The nest was 11 inches deep and the orifice 1¾
inches in diameter.
J. H. Fleming (1901) says that the Arctic three-toed woodpecker is
“a common resident in Parry Sound, rarer in Muskoka. This Woodpecker
has a habit of sometimes nesting in colonies. I saw the nests of such
a colony near Sand Lake in 1896; there were six or seven nests, each
cut into the trunk of a living cedar, just below the first branch, and
usually eight or ten feet from the ground. The cedars were in a dense
forest, overlooking a small stream that empties into Sand Lake.”
Macoun (1909) reports, on the authority of Spreadborough, that “a pair
nested in a telegraph pole quite near Cache lake station of the Parry
Sound railway.” Major Bendire (1895) writes:
On May 10, 1883, while en route from Fort Klamath to
Linkville, Oregon, and only a few miles from the latter
place, just where the pine timber ended and the sagebrush
commenced, I found a male busily at work on a pine stump,
only about 2½ feet high and about 18 inches in diameter,
standing within a few feet of the road, and close to a
charcoal burner’s camp, in quite an open and exposed
situation, nearly all the timber in the vicinity having
been cut down. The stump was solid, full of pitch, and
showed no signs of decay; the entrance hole was about 1½
inches in diameter and 8 inches from the top. The cavity,
when first examined, was only about 2 inches deep, and
on my return, two days later, it had reached a depth of
4 inches: the female was then at work. To make sure of a
full set of eggs, I waited until the 25th. The cavity then
was found to be 18 inches deep, and was gradually enlarged
toward the bottom. The four eggs it contained had been
incubated about four days. The female was on the nest, and
uttered a hissing sound as she left it, and might easily
have been caught, as she remained in the hole until the
stump was struck with a hatchet. The sides of the cavity
were quite smooth, and the eggs were partly embedded in a
slight layer of pine chips. The locality where this nest
was found was near the top of a low divide, not over 4,100
feet in altitude.
Dr. Thomas S. Roberts (1932) calls attention to an interesting feature
in the nesting habits of this woodpecker, as observed in two nestings
that he saw in Minnesota; he says of the two nests:
The nesting-hole was in a live jack-pine on the edge of a
tamarack and spruce swamp, only twenty feet from a traveled
road and close by a log house used as a store. The entrance
faced south and was twelve feet from the ground, at which
point the tree was seven inches in diameter. The outer bark
of the tree had been chipped off for a distance of twelve
to fifteen inches above and below the hole and half-way
around the tree, thus leaving a large, irregular, whitish
area. * * *
Another nest, found the same season, was also in a live
evergreen tree and the outer bark had been similarly
stripped from around the entrance, making a conspicuous,
white patch with the dark nesting-hole in the center. Can
this be a direction mark for the returning bird among the
dark tree trunks around?
As to the height from the ground, P. B. Philipp writes to me that of 26
nesting holes examined by him in New Brunswick two were 15 feet, two 12
feet, three 10 feet, one 8 feet, two 6 feet, two 5 feet, four 4 feet,
six 3 feet, and four only 2 feet above ground.
Although the Arctic three-toed woodpecker usually nests at no great
height above ground, there are a few exceptions to this rule, mainly
in the western portion of its range. Grinnell and Storer (1924) record
a nest seen in the Yosemite region that was 50 feet above ground in a
dead lodgepole pine. Harry S. Swarth (1924) found, in the Skeena River
region, the highest nest of which I can find any record; he says: “A
nest of the Arctic three-toed woodpecker was found in Kispiox Valley.
It was placed in a dead and charred Engelmann spruce, in a strip of
spruce woods bordering a muskeg otherwise surrounded by poplar forest.
The nest hole was eighty feet from the ground. It was two and one-half
inches in diameter and one foot deep, drilled through an outer sheath
of sound, hard wood, and downward through soft, rotten ‘punk.’”
_Eggs._--The number of eggs laid by the Arctic three-toed woodpecker
varies from two to six, four being the commonest number. These vary
from ovate to elliptical-ovate, the former shape prevailing. The shell
is dull or only slightly glossy and is pure white. The measurements of
39 eggs average 21.32 by 18.94 millimeters; the eggs showing the four
extremes measure =25.9= by 18.7, 25.1 by =20.2=, and =22.35= by =17.53=
millimeters.
_Young._--The period of incubation is about 14 days; both sexes assist
in this and in the care of the young. Only one brood is raised in a
season, but if the eggs are taken, a second set will be laid, often in
the same nest.
Mr. Achilles (1906) watched a nest containing young for 24 consecutive
hours, he and a companion taking turns at the vigil and sleeping
alternately within ten yards of the tree; he writes:
The parents, when feeding their young, usually alighted
within a space of three feet below the hole, and never
directly at its entrance. They would pause here for a
moment as though fearing they were observed by someone.
Then they would hop up to the hole and look in, anywhere
from two up to six times, as if accustoming their eyes to
the darkness. Once in a while grubs could be seen in their
bills, but, from the actions of the birds when feeding
their young, they appeared to be regurgitating. During
twenty-four hours the female fed the young thirty times,
and the male twenty-nine times.
As it grew dusk, the young gradually grew quieter, and
their little “peep-peep-peep” greatly resembled those of
chicks when crawling beneath their mother’s wings. From two
o’clock in the afternoon till seven o’clock that evening,
two minutes was the longest period during which the young
did not utter a single “peep.” From seven P. M. until
two minutes after four the next morning, the young birds
ceased this continuous chattering. The mother was the last
to feed them at night, the time being seventeen minutes
after seven; but the male was up first in the morning.
At four-fifteen in the morning, the young uttered a few
sleepy “peeps,” and the male alighted three feet below the
hole at four-sixteen. The young birds heard him alight and
immediately commenced to chatter. The male hopped up to the
hole, looked in twice, and then fed them. The young birds’
bills were seen, indicating that they were very hungry,
and were hanging on to the inner wall of the nest near the
entrance. Soon after this their hunger was appeased, their
bills were seen no more, and the parents had to go almost
into the hole to feed them.
_Plumages._--The nestlings are naked and blind at first, but the
juvenal plumage is acquired before the young leave the nest. In the
juvenal plumage, the young male is similar to the adult male, but the
yellow crown patch is smaller and not so sharply defined; the upper
parts are duller, browner black, lacking the glossy, bluish edgings;
the breast is tinged with dull buffy white; and the flanks are more
heavily and less distinctly barred or spotted with dull black. The
young female is similar to the young male, but there is no distinct
yellow patch on the crown, only scattering yellow feathers in varying
amounts, often few or none at all. This plumage is worn through the
summer and early fall; the first winter plumage, which is practically
indistinguishable from that of the adult, is apparently not fully
acquired until November or December. Adults have one complete annual
molt, beginning in August.
_Food._--More than three-quarters of the food of both species of
three-toed woodpeckers consists of the larvae of wood-boring beetles,
mainly Cerambycidae and Buprestidae. Referring to the former, Prof. F.
E. L. Beal (1911) says:
Stomachs containing 15 to 20 of these grubs are very
common, and one held 34. Probably the stomach is filled
several times each day, and it does not seem unreasonable
to assume that a bird will eat 50 of these insects every 24
hours for 6 months and at least 25 daily for the other half
of the year. At this rate one bird will annually destroy
13,675 of these destructive grubs. * * *
Probably there are not many other agencies more destructive
to timber than this family of beetles. Nor is timber safe
even after it has been cut. Logs lying in the mill yard or
forest may be ruined in a single season if these creatures
are not prevented from depositing their eggs. * * * A very
efficient check upon the undue increase of these insects
is found in the woodpeckers, especially the two species of
Picoides.
Weevils and other beetles and some ants are eaten, as well as a few
other insects and spiders. Vegetable food, wild fruits, mast, and
cambium amount to less than 12 percent of the food.
While with us, in southern New England, in winter, this woodpecker
shows a decided preference for dead white pine trees (_Pinus strobus_),
especially those that have been killed by fire or have been dead long
enough for the bark to have partially peeled off. An isolated tree or
a group of trees of this type may be visited day after day by one of
these woodpeckers, during its stay, with such regularity that many
an observer, who has never seen an Arctic three-toed woodpecker, may
feel reasonably sure of finding one in such a place, if it has been
previously seen there. Its persistent work on such a tree is well
described by E. H. Forbush (1927) as follows:
This species very often begins to work on the trunk near
the foot of a tree; it sounds the bark with direct blows,
and then, turning its head from side to side, strikes its
beak slantingly into and under the bark, and flakes it off.
It often works long on the same tree and barks the whole
trunk in time, only occasionally working on the branches.
Thus it exposes channels of bark-beetles and the holes made
by borers. When the bird remains motionless, it is well
concealed against the blackened bark of the burnt trees.
It seems deliberate in its movements and appears to do its
work thoroughly, as it often remains five to ten minutes
on the same spot and then shifts only a little distance.
In early autumn, while the grubs are still at work on the
tree, it lays its head against the tree, at times, turning
it first to one side and then to the other as if listening.
Grinnell, Dixon, and Linsdale (1930) write of the feeding habits of
this woodpecker in the Lassen Peak region: