Dr. Sutton (1930) has remarked that some individuals will “fly up
hastily and boldly upon hearing a commotion in the woods.” They may
sometimes be called up by imitating their cry, by clapping together
the cupped palms of one’s hands, or by pounding with a billet of wood
upon a tree trunk. I was following one morning a forest trail, where I
knew a pair of the woodpeckers to be in residence, and had a glimpse,
as I walked, of a large bird flying away. There stood against the sky,
in the direction of the retreat, the stub of a great treetop. Pausing
in my tracks, I waited until, after a few minutes, the suspected
woodpecker came leaping up the stub--to have a look at me, as I
supposed. In such case, the square shoulders of the bird, the slender
white-striped neck, and the hammer head with its pointed scarlet crest
are very conspicuous.
Maurice Brooks (1934) has remarked upon the playfulness of the birds
when at ease.
For all their alertness, it remains still to be said that on occasion,
when the birds are feeding, or when tending a nestful of young, it
is possible to approach quietly and to remain watching, while they,
unheeding, continue their activities.
It is common to find hairy and downy woodpeckers associated with the
pileated, both on nesting grounds and when feeding. There is here, I
believe, some measure of commensalism. I have in mind an observation
upon a downy on the same dead hemlock tree with a pileated woodpecker.
The larger bird was scaling off the bark and feeding; the smaller
seemed to be gleaning over areas the pileated had left.
Tucked in the niche formed by a great furrowlike incision in the bole
of a basswood tree, and about 10 feet from the ground, I once found a
nest of the olive-backed thrush.
When I cut down the stub of which I have spoken, and which contained
four old nesting cavities of the pileated woodpecker, I found the
lowest, 25 feet from the ground, to be occupied by a family of
white-footed mice (_Peromyscus maniculatus_), and I have no doubt
that these cavities, after their abandonment by the woodpeckers, are
commonly used by flying squirrels, by owls, and by tree-nesting ducks.
Prof. Brooks (1934) has most engagingly described the enticement of
pileated woodpeckers to come to feeding trays, and, incidentally, has
adduced evidence of their traits of caution and of curiosity. To this
he adds (MS.): “I have indicated, in an article in Bird-Lore, that
we have found Pileated Woodpeckers something of clowns. The gourd
experience described in the above-mentioned article seemed to be in a
spirit of play. The evident curiosity displayed by many birds observed
is noteworthy; under its urge they apparently lose much of their fear.
Around our blinds they have used a slow and cautious approach, but
once at the feeding shelves, they have not been particularly nervous
or excitable. At times I have found them surprisingly tame in the open
woods.”
The pileated woodpecker lives, as has been said, almost entirely within
the forest cover. Its flight is commonly a matter of gliding and of
slow-measured flapping through the trees. Its appearance then is
unmistakable--large and black, with a flashing pattern of white beneath
the wings, and a gleaming scarlet crest.
At times it rises above the treetops and moves over greater distances,
and then its manner of flight bears greater likeness to the typical
bounding or galloping flight of the generality of woodpeckers. Its
outline against the sky is not unlike a kingfisher’s. Dr. Sutton (1930)
describes an encounter in the Pennsylvania mountains with a bird that
“cackled for about fifteen minutes, pounding intermittently on a tree
trunk. It then rose in air, mounted to a plane above the tree-tops,
and flew in direct course down the valley, uttering a single, loud,
even-toned _puck_ about every two seconds, as far as we could hear it.
The bird was still flying high when it faded from view.”
Cornelius Weygandt (1912) described from Monroe County, Pa., the
appearance of “the Logcock that in late July and early August made the
sunset hour more memorable by its passing”:
It was on the evening of July 26 that we first saw him
* * * we noticed a large bird flying heron-like toward
us. He passed us and made his way onward toward a tall
broken-topped gum tree that stood out black against the
sunset. He “landed” on its side near the top, woodpecker
fashion, and bobbed downtrunk backwards for several yards.
The sky was mauve and gold and crimson, and the great
bird loomed blacker and bigger than he really was, limned
sharply against it. He had not dropped along like the
smaller woodpeckers, but had kept on more steadily, very
like a heron, with only slight risings and fallings. After
a rest on the gum tree of some three minutes he flung
himself into the air and dove down into the Buck Hill Gorge.
Vickers (1915) characterizes the bird’s flight as “powerful and
straight-forward, his head and neck carrying his powerful beak like
a spear * * * [the bird] large as a crow and with a certain short,
sturdy, kingfisherlike aspect.”
In general conclusion it may be said that the pileated woodpecker has
the habit and manner of a giant, forest-loving flicker.
_Voice._--Throughout the greater part of the year the pileated
woodpecker is a relatively silent bird, but during the nesting season
drumming and calling are frequent. The usual call is a cackle,
resembling that of the flicker, though louder and of more sonorous
quality. The “song” of the white-breasted nuthatch so far resembles it
in pitch and tempo that a nuthatch near at hand may, for an instant,
suggest the woodpecker far away. The _ka, ka, ka_ of the woodpecker’s
cackle is variable in quality, in speed of iteration, and in
continuity, and seems to be expressive, sometimes of alarm, sometimes
of companionship, sometimes of contentment. Aretas A. Saunders (1935)
has noted that often there is rise in pitch at the beginning of a
rendition and a slight fall at the end; and Samuel Scoville, Jr.
(1920), distinguishing this from the flicker’s similar call, has
remarked on “a queer little quirk at the end.” When a pair of birds
cackle in alternation, as commonly they do, a difference in pitch will
be noted; but whether that be a constant sexual difference, or a matter
of individuality merely, I cannot say.
In the nesting season the mated birds have another flickerlike
_wuck-a-wuck_ call that seems to be peculiarly associated with their
conjugal relationship. They use it in courtship and when they relieve
one another in attendance at the nest.
Dr. Sutton (1930) mentions yet another call and describes it as
“whining notes, suggesting the _mew_ of the yellow-bellied sapsucker.”
But it is more than that. It is a loud cry, that resembles the scream
of a hawk. It is commonly reiterated slowly in five or six repetitions.
Unless one were to follow the sound and discover its source, he would
hardly impute it to this bird. It too, I believe, is a call peculiar to
the nesting season.
When the bird is in flight a slowly uttered _puck, puck_ may sometimes
be heard, and sometimes what for lack of a better term may be called a
creaking of the moving wings.
Besides these there is a high-pitched scream--“a bugle call,” says
Florence Merriam Bailey (1902), with which the bird greets the rising
sun. Horace W. Wright (1912) has noted that in June the bird is first
heard within a few minutes after sunrise and has described the
awakening thus: “There are eight records, when a bird has been heard
loudly rapping in the distance with slow and measured blows or has
called lustily and long, sometimes answered by another.”
_Enemies._--The number of eggs laid suggests that there must be
some wastage: that somewhere in the round of life the bird must be
peculiarly exposed to destruction; and to this point Dr. Sutton (1930)
speaks:
The Duck Hawk (_Rhynchodon peregrinus anatum_) appears to
be the chief, indeed perhaps the only, natural enemy of
this woodpecker in this State [Pennsylvania]. At Spruce
Creek, Huntingdon County, where these falcons have nested
for years, I found, on March 21, 1921, the head and plumage
of a male woodpecker which had not been dead long. Near
Palmerton, Carbon County, I saw a Duck Hawk pursue and with
ease strike down a pileated woodpecker that had started
to fly across the river. The hawk flew so fast that the
woodpecker seemed to have been unaware of the pursuit. A
cloud of feathers burst from the body of the victim as
it collapsed. The duck hawk apparently winters regularly
along some of our streams, and takes whatever comes along,
with a preference, perhaps, for the somewhat larger birds;
and to it the comparatively clumsy log cock falls easy
prey. So far as I know, neither the great horned owl nor
the Cooper’s hawk ever captures the bird, and our stomach
examinations of several hundred Goshawks revealed none
of its bones or plumage, though this savage predator no
doubt occasionally captures such birds as are to be found
throughout the winter.
R. B. Simpson (1910) wrote: “I once shot a Sharp-shinned Hawk that was
making a desperate attempt to catch a pileated * * *. A year or two ago
in summer along a trout stream in virgin forest back in the mountains
[of northern Pennsylvania], I came to a mossy spot where a pileated had
been wrecked and a close inspection showed the tracks of a huge wildcat
who had no doubt caught the big woodpecker on the ground or on a log.”
See also Bendire (1895).
In addition to man’s disturbance of habitat with which this paper has
had largely to do, the following matters are noteworthy:
Pennant (1785) wrote that the Indians made a practice of decking their
calumets with the crests of these birds. And see Bendire (1895).
Audubon (1842) said of the pileated woodpecker: “Its flesh is tough, of
a bluish tint, and smells so strongly of the worms and insects on which
it generally feeds, as to be extremely unpalatable.” Sutton (1930),
however, was able to show, both by the testimony of living witnesses
and by written record as well, that these birds, along with other
smaller birds, were once commonly exposed for sale as food in city
markets.
Major Bendire (1895) wrote:
I have occasionally seen bunches of these birds, numbering
from four to twelve, exposed for sale in the markets of
Washington, D. C. * * * I tried to eat one, when short of
meat, while traveling through the Blue Mountains of Oregon,
but I certainly can not recommend it. It feeds to a great
extent on the large black wood ants, which impart to it a
very peculiar, and to me an extremely unpleasant flavor,
a kind of sweet-sour taste, which any amount of seasoning
and cooking does not disguise, and I consider it as a very
unpalatable substitute for game of any kind.
_Winter._--As is true of other members of the family, the pileated
woodpecker may in fall be found digging for himself a cavity for winter
occupancy. Few birds other than the woodpeckers make what may be
called habitations, except as part of or incident to the activities of
reproduction. And in the case of the woodpeckers, while I know that in
particular instances these winter retreats are not so used, I am unable
to say that they never are subsequently used as nesting cavities.
Hoyes Lloyd (1932) wrote:
One of the most delightful bird adventures we have had at
Rockcliffe Park [near the City of Ottawa] was the visit
to us of a pileated woodpecker. It first came at 4:30 p. m.,
on October 12, 1928, and excavated a hole in a hollow
basswood for sleeping quarters * * *. The chips, from live
wood, were up to three inches by two inches in area, and
an eighth of an inch thick. Each chip had two or three
gouge-like beak marks across its surface. At 4:50 p. m.
on the next day the pileated came home, and although we
were all outdoors, it went directly to its own tree and
after a brief survey of affairs in the vicinity, retired.
The approach was silent except, possibly for a single
Flicker-like note in the distance. About 9 a. m., on
the 14th, our bird woke me up with a loud _kuk-kuk-kuk_
call and it looked very large as it climbed up the home
basswood. Promptly at quarter to five it came home,
undoubtedly after a day among the big hardwoods of the
neighborhood. We were all impressed by its great length of
neck, as it swung its head with a curious bobbing motion,
that was used, without doubt, to give a view on each side
of the home tree, before going into the hole for the night.
A pileated, thought to be the same bird, came back on March
22, 1929, possibly, or certainly on the 23rd, and slept in
its winter home.
Prof. Brooks writes (MS.): “At French Creek [Upshur County, W. Va.],
two birds used a nesting cavity as a roosting place during the
following winter.”
CEOPHLOEUS PILEATUS FLORIDANUS (Ridgway)
FLORIDA PILEATED WOODPECKER
HABITS
This is the race that is supposed to inhabit central and southern
Florida, as far north as Orange County, but there seems to be some
doubt as to the desirability of naming it. Ridgway (1914) describes it
as “similar to _P. p. pileatus_, but decidedly blacker (that is, the
general black color less slaty or sooty), and average size less, with
bill usually relatively shorter and broader.” But he admits his doubt,
in a footnote, saying:
I have found it very difficult to decide as to the
propriety of separating a form of this species from central
and southern Florida, but after having several times laid
out and carefully compared the entire series of specimens
from more southern localities, have come to the conclusion
that to do so will, apparently, best express the facts of
the case. Going by size alone, there is little difference
between specimens from southern and central Florida
and those from localities as far northward as Maryland
(lowlands), southern Illinois, and Missouri; in fact some
of these more northern specimens are quite as small as
Florida ones. But the series from central and southern
Florida are uniformly decidedly blacker than the rest. * * *
I have restricted the name _pileatus_ to an intermediate
form, characterized by the small size of _P. p. floridanus_
combined with an appreciably lighter (more slaty or sooty)
coloration, often approaching closely the lightness of hue
of _P. p. abieticola_.
Bangs (1898), in separating the northern race from the southern, says
that “southern South Carolina must be considered the type locality
of the species, and birds from this region are as extreme of the
southern race as those from Florida.” Furthermore, Arthur H. Howell
(1932) observes that “careful study of a large series from Florida
in comparison with a series of typical _pileatus_ from the Middle
States shows no constant difference in color, as claimed by Ridgway
for the subspecies ‘_floridanus_’; evidently specimens kept for some
years become more brownish (less sooty), which fact probably explains
Ridgway’s mistake, he having compared fresh Florida skins with older
skins from the Middle States.” Probably, also, if specimens from the
two regions in similar seasonal plumage were compared, there would
not be so much difference in coloration as Ridgway claims. Even if
Ridgway is correct in his diagnosis, it would seem unwise, in the
author’s opinion, to recognize the Florida race and thus establish an
intermediate race, where the gradation in both size and color warrants
the naming of only the two extremes.
Mr. Howell (1932) says of its haunts: “The pileated woodpecker in
Florida inhabits several different types of country--pine woods,
cypress swamps, hardwood swamps, and hammocks of cabbage palmetto and
other trees. The birds are perhaps most numerous in hammocks or swamps,
where there is an abundance of decaying trees.”
_Nesting._--Mr. Howell (1932) writes: “We found a number of pairs
breeding in cypress trees along the borders of Lake Istokpoga. The
nests are excavated either in living trees or in rotten stubs, from
12 to 75 feet from the ground. The trees commonly used for nesting
sites are cypress, pine, black gum, oak, and cabbage palmetto.” While
collecting in the Florida Keys in 1908, I found a pair of pileated
woodpeckers nesting on Murrays Key on April 3 and surprised one of the
birds working in its nesting hole; the excavation was about 12 feet
from the ground in the main trunk of a live black mangrove, which stood
in the inner fringe of mangroves around the borders of the island. I
climbed up to it and reached into the cavity but could not touch the
bottom of it; we were unable to visit the island again.
Major Bendire (1895) writes:
In southern Florida the mating season commences early in
March, and farther north correspondingly later. A suitable
tree having been selected, generally a dead one in large
and extensive woods, both birds work alternately on the
nesting site. This is usually excavated in the main trunk,
from 12 to 75 feet from the ground, and it takes from seven
to twelve days to complete it. The entrance measures from
3 to 3½ inches in diameter, and it often goes 5 inches
straight into the trunk before it is worked downward.
The cavity varies from 7 to 30 inches in depth, and is
gradually enlarged toward the bottom, where it is about 6
inches wide. A layer of chips is left at the bottom, on
which the eggs are deposited. Occasionally the entrance
hole, instead of being circular, is oval in shape, like
that of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. The inside of the
cavity is quite smooth, the edges of the entrance are
nicely beveled, and, taken as a whole, it is quite an
artistic piece of work.
Dr. William L. Ralph told Bendire of a clever trick practiced by this
woodpecker; he found a nest “in the second week in April, about the
time nidification is at its height there. On rapping on the trunk
of the tree the bird, which was at home, stuck his head out of the
hole and dropped some chips, naturally causing the Doctor to believe
that the nesting site was still unfinished. The same performance was
repeated on several subsequent visits, and finally he concluded to
examine the nest anyhow, when he found nearly full-grown young. This
pair of birds must have had eggs at the time he first discovered the
nest, and the chips were simply thrown out as a ruse to deceive him.”
_Eggs._--This woodpecker lays, ordinarily, three or four eggs, rarely
five. These are indistinguishable from those of the species from other
southern States. The measurements of 22 eggs average 33.61 by 24.75
millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure =36.2= by 24.5,
35.70 by =26.19=, =31.5= by 24.0, and 34.2 by =22.8= millimeters.
_Food._--Mr. Howell (1932) states that “this large woodpecker
is a decidedly useful species. It never injures farm crops, but
feeds entirely in the forests, rendering good service there in the
destruction of wood-boring beetles. It eats, also, ants and wild fruits
and berries, including the fruit of the sour gum, tupelo gum, dogwood,
persimmon, frost grape, holly, poison ivy, sumac, and hackberry.” C.
J. Maynard (1896) says that they “are partial to the berries of the
palmetto, feeding, in Florida, upon little else when these are in
season.”
CEOPHLOEUS PILEATUS PICINUS (Bangs)
WESTERN PILEATED WOODPECKER
HABITS
In describing and naming this large, dark-colored race from the
Northwest coast region, Outram Bangs (1910) says that it is “as large
as, or even larger than, _P. pileatus abieticola_ (Bangs), but color
sooty black as in _P. pileatus pileatus_ (Linn.), the throat usually
much marked with sooty, and the sides and flanks but slightly marked
with grayish.”
Major Bendire (1895) writes of its haunts: “In the mountains of Oregon,
and presumably in other localities, the pileated woodpecker is most
frequently met with in the extensive burnt tracts, the so-called
‘deadenings,’ where forest fires have swept through miles of fine
timber and killed everything in its path. Such localities afford this
species an abundant food supply in the slowly decaying trees, and are
sure to atract them.”
Grinnell, Dixon, and Linsdale (1930) say that in the Lassen Peak region
in California “individuals of this woodpecker were found in or among
white firs, red firs, incense cedars, and yellow pines. Foraging birds
were often working on rotting stumps or logs close to the ground.
Almost invariably, even when in the tops of tall trees, the birds were
on dead or softened wood.”
_Nesting._--J. A. Munro (1923) says: “In southern British Columbia
nesting begins early in May. The nest is a chiselled hole in a
tree, fourteen to eighteen inches deep, cut occasionally in a green
cottonwood or poplar, more often in a dead pine or fir, and rarely in
any but the tallest trees and at a considerable distance above the
ground. On a cushion of fine chips three or four rose-white eggs are
laid.”
Carriger and Wells (1919) give an interesting account of the nesting
of the western pileated woodpecker in Placer County, Calif. The first
nest, containing young birds, was found early in June 1915. “The tree
stood about fifteen feet from the shore of the lake and in about five
feet of water. At its base the diameter was about eighteen inches, at
the nest entrance about ten. The tree was a live aspen. * * *
“The nest cavity was eighteen inches deep and six inches in diameter,
while the entrance was three inches in width. The entire excavation had
been made in live wood although there were plenty of large dead trees
near by.”
On May 16, 1916, they returned to this locality and found the birds
nesting in the same tree in a new hole “located three feet higher
up and on the opposite side of the tree.” The nest contained three
newly hatched young and one unhatched egg. Another visit was made the
following year, on May 5, but the woodpeckers “had abandoned the lake
and were making their home in a tree located in the channel of a small
stream which flowed into the lake and about three hundred yards from
their former site. The nest was found to be about half completed.
Visits were made to it on several occasions until May 26, but the birds
were not seen again.”
In 1918 they were more successful. There was practically no water in
the lake; and, on May 2, a search was “made through the aspen grove
which in former years had stood in its entirety in from two to seven
or eight feet of water, with the result that Mr. Flickinger discovered
a fresh hole forty feet up in a live aspen growing close to the lake
shore.” The nest had been completed, but no eggs had been laid.
Returning on May 12, they collected a set of four fresh eggs. They say:
The nest cavity was eighteen inches deep by about six in
diameter, while the entrance was nearly four inches across.
The nest was visited again on June 1 by both of us, and
to our surprise we found that the birds had used the same
cavity for a second set of eggs, four in number, which
were three-quarters incubated. The short time intervening
between the two sets shows that the birds did not lose any
time after their first set was lost to them. The locality
was again visited on June 30 and we found that the birds
had finished another cavity about two hundred feet from
the first tree and apparently the female was brooding a
third set. We did not disturb the bird and hope that she
successfully raised her brood.
Inasmuch as the lake contained no water at this point we
made a careful search of the upper end of the basin with
the result that twenty cavities in all were located in
various trees in what is usually the lake or very close to
its shores. Most of these cavities were in live aspens.
Apparently this pair of birds has nested here for a great
many years, for although we have carefully worked the
surrounding country for miles in every direction we have
never discovered other birds or their cavities.
_Eggs._--The western pileated woodpecker apparently lays either three
or four eggs; I have no record of five. The eggs are indistinguishable
from those of the northern pileated woodpecker. The measurements of two
eggs in the P. B. Philipp collection are 30.9 by 23 and 29.6 by 22.9
millimeters. W. L. Dawson (1923) gives the average measurement as 32.5
by 24.1 millimeters.
_Young._--Mrs. Irene G. Wheelock (1904) gives the following interesting
account of the young: