particularly about decayed stumps; the eggs, larvae, and adults of
wood-boring insects, particularly beetles; and on berries, acorns,
nuts, and wild grapes. When digging for insects beneath the bark or in
the wood of dead limbs or trunks of trees, it pounds steadily away,
head swinging back in an impossible arc and driving straight down
with the force of a blacksmith’s sledge, chips flying every stroke or
two; by employing a wrenching stroke with its chisel-bill, it knocks
three-inch, four-inch, or even six-inch chips from the tree and causes
them to fly for some distance.”
Arthur H. Howell (1924) says that in Alabama its food “consists mainly
of ants, beetles, and wild fruits and berries, including sour gum,
tupelo gum, dogwood, persimmon, frost grape, holly, poison ivy, sumac,
and hackberry.”
_Behavior._--The pileated woodpecker is ordinarily a wild, shy bird of
the wilderness forests, though in some places it is said to be quite
unsuspicious, where perhaps it has not yet learned to fear man, or
where familiarity has taught it to trust him. Its flight is rather
slow, but vigorous and usually direct, after the manner of a crow; at
times, however, in short swings, it adopts the bounding flight, so
common to many woodpeckers. It is an adept at keeping out of sight
behind a tree trunk and will lead a hunter a long chase by flying from
tree to tree well in advance of him. When shot dead, it may cling for
some time to the branch or trunk, until its muscles relax and allow it
to fall. If wounded, it keeps up a constant chatter while falling and
will not become quiet while life remains; a wounded bird should be
handled carefully, for it can inflict a painful wound with its powerful
beak.
Audubon (1842) relates the following story, as told to him by the Rev.
John Bachman: “A pair of pileated woodpeckers had a nest in an old elm
tree, in a swamp, which they occupied that year; the next spring early,
two blue-birds took possession of it, and there had young. Before these
were half grown, the woodpeckers returned to the place, and, despite of
the cries and reiterated attacks of the blue-birds, the others took the
young, not very gently, as you may imagine, and carried them away to
some distance. Next the nest itself was disposed of, the hole cleaned
and enlarged, and there they raised a brood. The nest, it is true, was
originally their own.”
Robert P. Allen has sent me the following note: “When in one of the
Carolina river swamps with Herbert L. Stoddard, early in December
1936, we were interested in the actions of pileated woodpeckers that
we called to us by tapping on the side of our cypress dug-out in
imitation of the birds. We paddled our canoe close against the buttress
of a large cypress tree, so that we were partially concealed by the
trunk itself and by a dense growth of intertwining branches overhead.
As many as four pileateds at one time responded to our efforts, and
all these appeared to be males. As they swooped low, to get a look at
this stranger in their midst, each bird made what we took to be an
_intimidating_ noise with its wings.
“From the immediate and pugnacious interest that these male (?)
pileateds showed in our presence, it would seem as if they had
previously cataloged the pileated population of that area and had,
therefore, rushed over to investigate the presence of a bird that could
not be accounted for, except as a stranger and a trespasser. Their
efforts at intimidation were evidently designed to drive us out of the
region.”
_Voice._--The most familiar note of the pileated woodpecker is the
loud, ringing call, suggesting the “yucker” call of the flicker, but
louder and stronger, less rapid, more prolonged, and on a lower key.
Mr. Simmons (1925) has summed up the notes of this woodpecker very
well, as follows: “A loud _cac, cac, cac_ as it flies. A sonorous
_cow-cow-cow_, repeated many times; a clear _wichew_, when two birds
are together. A loud cackle, like loud, ringing, derisive laughter,
_chuck-chuck_; _chuck, chuck-ah, chuck, chuck-ah, chuck, chuck, chuck,
chuck_; or _chuck, chuck, chuck, chuck, chuck, chuck, chuck_.”
_Field marks._--The pileated woodpecker has the appearance of a large,
black bird, nearly as large as a crow and somewhat like it in flight,
but the large, white patches in the wings are distinctive, as well as
the flaming red crest. As it bounds through the woods in long swinging
flights from tree to tree, it is unmistakable. While hammering on a
tree trunk, its long neck and heavy head and beak are conspicuous and
distinctive.
_Winter._--Throughout most of its range the southern pileated
woodpecker is a permanent resident; in fact, there is very little
southward movement for the species, even in the more northern portions
of its range, except for winter wanderings in search of a suitable food
supply.
Vernon Sharpe, Jr. (1932), writing from Tennessee, says: “The winter
roosting place of this bird is rather interesting. A live hollow tree
is selected, and there two or more holes are dug, presumably with
the thought of using one for escape should any attack by some night
marauder take place. These roosting places are used year after year;
in fact, there is one site in the Overton Hills, south of Nashville,
that has been used for so many seasons it has become essential for the
woodpecker to cut away a portion of the tree that is trying to heal
over the cavity.”
DISTRIBUTION
_Range._--North America; chiefly timbered regions east of the Great
Plains and from southern Mackenzie to western Montana and California.
The range of the pileated woodpecker extends =north= to northern
British Columbia (Buckley Lake and Thutade Lake); southern Mackenzie
(Fort Liard and Fort Smith); northern Saskatchewan (Poplar Point);
northeastern Ontario (Moose Factory); and southeastern Quebec (Godbout
and Mont Louis Lake). =East= through the wooded areas along the
Atlantic coast to southeastern Florida (Everglades, Royal Palm Hammock,
and Key West). =South= along the Gulf coasts of Florida, Mississippi,
and Louisiana, to southeastern Texas (San Point). The species is not
known through the southern Rocky Mountain and Great Basin regions,
appearing next in central California (Yosemite Valley and Napa County).
From the latter point it occurs north along the Pacific coast through
Oregon and Washington, to northwestern British Columbia (Hazelton and
Buckley Lake).
The range above outlined is for the entire species, which has, however,
been separated into four subspecies. The southern pileated woodpecker
(_C. p. pileatus_) is found in the Eastern United States from central
Texas and northern Florida north to Oklahoma, southern Illinois,
southern Indiana, southern Pennsylvania, and Maryland; the northern
pileated woodpecker (_C. p. abieticola_), occupies the balance of the
range in Eastern North America, except for the peninsula of Florida
to which the Florida pileated woodpecker (_C. p. floridanus_) is
restricted. The western pileated woodpecker (_C. p. picinus_) is found
chiefly in the humid areas of the Northwest coast district but also
south to central California and east to western Montana and Idaho.
_Casual records._--Two specimens have been taken in North Dakota,
one at Grafton on May 30, 1905, and the other at Fargo on October
16, 1915. It may occur rarely in Wyoming, although no specimen is at
present known. The Colorado and New Mexico records are not considered
satisfactory.
_Egg dates._--Alberta: 18 records, May 10 to June 22; 9 records,
May 15 to 30, indicating the height of the season.
Arkansas: 18 records, April 5 to May 15; 9 records, April 15 to 30.
Florida: 32 records, March 22 to May 25; 16 records, April 10 to 23.
New Hampshire: 6 records, May 6 to 25.
Pennsylvania: 7 records, April 23 to May 21.
Texas: 8 records, March 4 to May 16.
CEOPHLOEUS PILEATUS ABIETICOLA Bangs
NORTHERN PILEATED WOODPECKER
PLATES 20-24
HABITS
CONTRIBUTED BY BAYARD HENDERSON CHRISTY
This, the largest race of _Ceophloeus pileatus_, inhabits the forests
of the Transition and Canadian Zones, from the Atlantic coast to the
Rocky Mountains. In the South it is replaced by _C. p. pileatus_ and
in the West by _C. p. picinus_. The southern limit of its range lies
across southern Pennsylvania, West Virginia, central Ohio, southern
Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri. The most northerly record
of its occurrence is that of John Reid, noted by Bendire (1895). He
took a specimen on Big Island, in Great Slave Lake (lat. 61° N.).
Bangs (1898), who described the northern form and named it _C. p.
abieticola_, believed that in the mountains of Virginia and West
Virginia lay the line of transition from the southern to the northern
form; but later investigators have determined that the line lies, as
first noted above, somewhat northward of Bangs’ location.
The characteristics that distinguish the northern from the southern
form are greater size, longer bill, slatiness rather than sootiness of
the black of the plumage, and greater extent of the white areas.
Catesby (1731) depicted the bird (in its southern form) and called it
“the large red-crested woodpecker”; and Linnaeus (1758), citing Catesby
as his source, named it, for his purposes, _pileatus_ (= crested).
Following Linnaeus, the English naturalist Latham (1783) began in 1781
to publish his General Synopsis; and he, lacking knowledge of the bird
in its haunts, and finding Catesby’s circumlocution unwieldy, took from
Linnaeus’s Latin, as a name for common usage, “pileated woodpecker.”
The indications are that Latham coined the name; certainly he gave it
currency.
The bird already possessed a common name; and it is a pity that Latham
did not know it. In its native land it was, and still is, commonly
called, the log-cock. That is a good name--apt, picturesque, and widely
used. Wilson (1811) knew it well enough, and so did Audubon (1842); and
they would have done well, had they given it place as the established
vernacular name. But Wilson, under Bartram’s tutelage, followed Latham,
and Audubon followed Wilson. They, in their prestige, have settled the
matter. Nuttall (1832) tried to make a stand for log-cock, and others
since have tried, but in vain. And now upon this splendid creature a
dull piece of pedantry remains hopelessly fixed.
Another homespun name in extensive use is _Cock-of-the-woods_; yet
another is _Wood-cock_. This last is suitable enough, but it leads
obviously to confusion. Accordingly, within the range of the true
woodcock (_Philohela minor_), the woodpecker is commonly distinguished
as the “black woodcock.” Other appellatives that have been picked
up here and there and gathered in the books are “black woodpecker,”
“English woodpecker,” “black log,” “king-of-the-woods,” “stump
breaker”; and, because of its cackling cry, “wood-hen,” “Indian-hen,”
“laughing woodpecker,” “johnny-cock,” “wood-chuck,” and “cluck-cock.”
(The last, given by Scoville, 1920, as current in Juniata County, Pa.,
is, perhaps, an assimilation from the Pennsylvania Dutch.)
The subspecific name _abieticola_ (= dweller amid fir trees) is in
some degree misleading, for, in the Northeastern States at least, the
bird is commonly found in forests of mingled conifers and hardwoods;
it shows no partiality to firs, nor even to conifers generally; and
it cuts its nesting cavities, in the large majority of cases, in the
dead and standing trunks of deciduous trees. In the Rocky Mountains,
however, according to the Weydemeyers (1928), it prefers growths of
larch, yellow pine, and Douglas fir.
It is a denizen of extensive forests. It will adapt itself to second
growth--particularly where the young trees have sprung up about some
remnant of the old; but in any case it requires wide areas. As forests
dwindle to woodlots, along with the wild turkey, the barred owl, and
the raven, it disappears. From regions once forested but now devoted
to agriculture it is gone; in the mountains, however, in the marginal
areas, where wooded ridges extend out to the plains, and in forested
swamp lands, it continues. In such territories, indeed, its numbers
during the past 50 years have increased, and it has reappeared in
localities once deserted. Reports of such recrudescence are many, and
they come from widely scattered places, particularly in the States to
eastward of the Mississippi River.
Roger T. Peterson (MS.) says: “The pileated woodpecker has greatly
increased in the Northeast during the past few years. At one time it
was nearly gone from many parts of New York State and southern New
England, where it had occurred in fair numbers. The bird disappeared
from northern New Jersey about 1880, and from southern New Jersey in
1908. About 1920 W. DeWitt Miller found it again at two or three points
in northern New Jersey; and now it is fairly common in many places in
the northern part of the State, and as far east as in Bergen County,
within 15 miles of New York City. Within the past 5 years it has
reappeared in the lower Hudson Valley. It is especially common in some
portions of southwestern New York State. In one recent year I found
four nests near the city of Jamestown, N. Y. Similar increases have
been noted by bird students in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Ohio, and
Missouri”--and, he might have added, in Pennsylvania.
Ludlow Griscom (1929) wrote: “I incline to the view that the increase
in this Woodpecker is not so much due to conservation, as to its
adaptation to less primeval conditions. The generation that regarded
this species as a game-bird died off in this Region [the Northeastern
States] before it returned.”
Granted that the species shows itself to be adaptable, it still is
pertinent to note other ameliorations of circumstance. When lumbering
operations have been carried through to completion, when the camps are
gone from the woods, and when new growth has begun to spring up, it is
generally true that animal life in its larger forms tends to reappear
and to increase. Again, the development of more fertile lands in the
West has had effect in the abandonment of poorer lands in the East.
Extensive areas, in New England particularly, that a hundred years ago
were farmed, have now long since returned to wilderness. The forests of
second growth, as they approach maturity, may be supposed increasingly
to afford the food resources proper to this denizen of the great
forests. And, finally, protective laws have been more intelligently
framed, more widely adopted, and more generally respected.
The birds range over plain and mountain side. They prefer “the edges
of the balsam and cedar swamps, when surrounded with forests of
hardwood and hemlocks” (Blackwelder, 1909, Iron County, Mich.). Their
nesting places are ordinarily in lowlands, and near water. In the
region where I have known them best--the Huron Mountains, in Marquette
County, Mich.--I have found the birds to occur in pairs or families at
intervals of two or three miles along the course of a river that flows
through primeval forest land. This I take to be a fair indication of
the saturation point in pileated woodpecker population.
_Migration._--Generally speaking, the species is resident wherever
found. Some of the earlier naturalists supposed that it retired in
winter from the more northerly portions of its range; but none affords
any evidence. George Miksch Sutton (1930), when ornithologist for the
Game Commission of Pennsylvania, having reviewed the reports of the
wardens, said that they tended to indicate a gradual movement of the
birds in winter around the eastern end of Lake Erie and southward into
Pennsylvania. Such may be the case. On the other hand, it is true that,
after the nesting season has passed, and throughout fall and winter,
the birds wander and appear in areas where at other seasons they are
unknown; and it may be that Dr. Sutton’s wardens were basing their
reports upon such seasonal reappearances. More precise observations
must be made before it can be asserted with confidence that there is
migration in any sense other than that here recognized.
_Courtship._--It is usual to find the birds associated in pairs, even
after the nesting season has passed; and from this the inference has
been drawn (Morrell, 1901; Knight, 1908) that they continue, year
after year, constantly mated. Lewis O. Shelley, writing from East
Westmoreland, N. H., says (MS.): “It is my belief that the pileated
mates for life, for, seen almost daily, one pair is known to have
shown no active spring display for the past few years, nor was a third
bird (male) seen near.” This inference may be sound; nevertheless, an
element of conjecture here should not be overlooked, and further data
should be sought.
In some cases, certainly, the birds engage in mating antics, and Edmund
W. Arthur (1934) relates an example:
On April 14, 1933, while driving with a companion * * *
from Slippery Rock [Pennsylvania] * * * to Grove City, I
observed a Pileated Woodpecker * * * flying across the
highway a short distance south of Barmore Run. Stopping our
car, we got out and followed the bird with our eyes, until
it alighted on a tall tree a thousand feet away in the
swampy woodland. Presently another, and then a third, were
seen. They were quite restless, though apparently fearless,
as evidenced by their flying about, alighting in plain view
of us upon trees not fifty yards distant. After several
minutes one of them--a female we thought--alighted upon a
grassy knoll in a pasture to the left of the road, where
it walked about for a brief interval, until a second came
to the knoll and approached within three or four feet of
the first. Then began a curious movement, much resembling
the dance of Flickers, wherein with bowing and scraping one
bird, stepping sideways, made a circle about the other, who
slowly turned, facing the performer. When the dance ceased
there was a sudden jerky movement on the part of each,
and thereupon they flew away. There are two houses at the
intersection, and the people living in one of them told us
that a pair of these birds had nested the year before in a
maple just in the rear of their house.
Francis H. Allen has written a description of a formal dance at a
season remote from mating time; and, since the description has not
been published, and since it is pertinent to the question of permanence
of mating, it is here given at length:
“On the side of Mount Monadnock, N. H., October 13, 1908, I watched two
birds executing a sort of dance. When first seen they were clinging
to the hole of a spruce, near the ground. They hopped up and down the
trunk, frequently pecking at each other’s bills simultaneously, now on
one side of the tree, now on the other. When I got too near they flew a
short distance to another tree, and I followed them about from tree to
tree for about half an hour, often within 50 or 60 feet of them. They
always lit at the base of the tree and worked up a few feet, seldom
going more than 5 feet up, I think. They hopped backward and downward a
great deal, and often they lifted and partly spread their wings. Their
motions were limber and undulating, marked by a certain awkward grace,
without the stiffness of the smaller woodpeckers. The crests were
elevated occasionally. I noticed no difference in the markings, but I
was then unacquainted with the sexual differences of the species, and I
cannot say whether or not they were male and female. They occasionally
uttered a faint _wahh, wahk, wahk_, in a soft, conversational tone; but
it was for the most part a silent performance.”
The bird drums a roll, as do other woodpeckers. The only other drumming
of comparable intensity is that of the yellow-bellied sapsucker, but
commonly the pileated woodpecker’s performance is so heavy as to be
unmistakable. Often the drumming consists not of a roll but of slow
heavy beats. Dr. Sutton (1930) writes: “On May 19, 1925, * * * I
heard a male drumming for over an hour * * * During the whole period
there was a noticeable similarity of the performances * * * At least
fifty or sixty times there was an introductory, rapidly given _roll_;
then a pause, followed by three distinct blows, * * * giving much the
impression of a queer rhythm beat upon an aboriginal drum.” With this
the description of the drumming of the sapsucker given by Dr. Harry C.
Oberholser (1896b) may be compared.
Ernest Waters Vickers (1915) gives the following description of “the
masterly roll of the great log-cock”:
“This roll is composed of twelve strokes or blows, forming
an ascending and descending climax; increasing in rapidity
and volume to the middle and dying in force and rapidity
just as it began. While the bird may not give the complete
roll, may break off anywhere, it is always, so far as I
have heard, a part of the above * * * A mellow yet powerful
cellular jar to which the whole wooded heart of the forest
makes echoing response--a solemn and ancient sound. * * *
“Thus * * * I heard one drumming far away on a sounding
board of peculiar musical resonance and power to carry * * *
I had often heard this roll a full mile and a half away;
once or twice I had even heard it in the house with doors
and windows closed! * * * This old sounding-board was the
hollow limb or arm of a big tulip tree or “white wood”
flung out at right angle from the trunk 60 or 70 feet from
the ground, a mere shell as appeared * * * sound and hard
and barkless. The spot where he hammered was white where
the weathered gray fibers had been beaten off by constant
use.
“That April day * * * he sat upright upon the limb grasping
it firmly, * * * poising himself, making a motion or two
as a neat penman about to begin writing starts with a
preliminary flourish, struck the limb somewhat lightly
at first and deliberately, accelerating both speed and
power, diminishing to stop as he started. He then paused
to listen to the effect, attend to the echoes, or wait for
the response of his mate perhaps, which occasionally rolled
back from somewhere away east in the woods. He would hop
about a trifle, cock his head examining his neighborhood a
little, dress his feathers or search for parasites;--but
not for long did he forget what he was there for; then
gather himself up for another reverberation. With such
energy did he hammer that his whole body shook and his
wings quivered. He fairly hurled himself wildly at it.
The great loose hair-like scarlet crest flowed in the sun
and his scarlet moustache added to his noble and savage
appearance.”
_Nesting._--The birds are very tenacious of their nesting places,
returning year after year to the same location and even to the same
tree trunk. It is usual to find several nesting holes (and, perhaps,
winter quarters too) within an area, say, 100 yards square. In such
preference, held to even when the forest has been partially cut down,
the reason probably lies why nests sometimes are found in open places.
Commonly, however, the nesting stub stands in heavy forest and within
the shadow of the leafy canopy. There are a few records of nests on
mountain sides and ridges, but, typically, the nesting tree stands in
valley or bottomland and near the margin of lake or stream or in a
swamp. The boles of trees riddled and furrowed in the pursuit of food
are in no case used for nesting. An ant-infested trunk may be supposed
to be definitely not suitable for such use.
Data are at hand upon 33 nests, from points widely scattered throughout
the range. Of these, one cavity was sunk in a large dead hemlock, one
in a dead pitch pine, one in a telegraph pole (an oddity--Roberts,
1932), and 30 in the boles of deciduous trees. Three are reported as
dug in living trees; four are more particularly reported as in the
dead tops of living trees; the remaining 20-odd were, certainly most
of them, and (for all that appears) all of them, in dead stubs. Of the
30, eight were in beech trees; six in poplar, and a seventh in tulip
poplar. Three were in birches, three in oaks, three in hickories. Two
were in sugar maples and one in a red maple. One was in an ash, one
in an elm, and one in a basswood. One was as low as 15 feet from the
ground; three as high as 70 feet. The average height was about 45 feet.