extends =north= to northern Montana (Strabane, Lewistown, Fairview,
and Terry); northern North Dakota (Arnegard and Willow City); southern
Manitoba (Lake St. Martin and Winnipeg); southern Ontario (Kenora,
Cobden, and Ottawa); southern Quebec (Three Rivers and Hatley); and
southern New Brunswick (St. John). The =eastern= limits of the range
extend from New Brunswick (St. John) south along the Atlantic coast
to Florida (Orlando and Fort Myers). =South= through the Gulf coastal
regions of Florida, Mississippi, and Louisiana; central Texas (Waco);
and central New Mexico (Fort Sumner and Albuquerque). =West= to New
Mexico (Albuquerque and Santa Fe); central Colorado (Hotchkiss,
Golden, Estes Park, and Fort Collins); eastern Wyoming (Laramie and
Carey burst); and Montana (Kirby, Billings, Lewistown, and Strabane).
During the summer season the species also has been taken or observed
north to southeastern Alberta (Medicine Hat, Big Stick, and Eastend);
southern Saskatchewan (Oak Lake, Aweme, and Pilot mound); Quebec
(Quebec City); and New Brunswick (Beaver Dam).
_Winter range._--The normal winter range of the red-headed woodpecker
appears to extend =north= to Oklahoma (Oklahoma City and Okmulgee);
northeastern Iowa (National); Illinois (Ohio and Mount Carmel);
Tennessee (Nashville and Knoxville); West Virginia (Charlestown and
Clarksburg); and southeastern Pennsylvania (Philadelphia). At this
season it is never common on the Atlantic coast north of South Carolina
(Charleston), but is found from there =south= to southern Florida
(Miami). From this point it winters westward along the Gulf coast to
Louisiana and probably Texas. The =western= limits of the winter range
appear to be central Texas (probably Somerset) and Oklahoma (Caddo and
Oklahoma City).
In addition to the winter range above given, it also has been noted
casually at this season in eastern Kansas and Nebraska, southeastern
South Dakota (Yankton, January 2, 1929, and the winter of 1936-37);
North Dakota (Grafton, specimen collected January 24, 1905); Minnesota
(frequent in the southern part); Wisconsin (occasional north to
Meriden and New London); southern Michigan (Grand Rapids, Lansing,
and Detroit); southern Ontario (Coldstream, Toronto, and Kingston);
southern Vermont (Bennington); and Massachusetts (Boston).
_Migration._--The migrations of the red-headed woodpecker are
imperfectly understood, and, as will be noted from the numerous casual
winter records, individuals of this species sometimes winter north
almost to the limits of the breeding range. This makes difficult the
designation of early and late dates of migration. Nevertheless, the
following dates may be considered representative of most seasons in
that portion of the range where the species is normally migratory:
_Spring migration._--Early dates of arrival are: New Jersey--Elizabeth,
February 27; New Providence, March 13; Cape May, March 27. Northwestern
Pennsylvania--Beaver, April 15. New York--Penn Yan, April 3; West
Brighton, April 12; Syracuse, April 14. Connecticut--Fairfield, March
2; Meriden, March 28. Massachusetts--Bernardstown, April 4; Russell,
April 21. Vermont--St. Johnsbury, April 19. Maine--Lewiston, May 8;
Portland, May 15. Quebec--Montreal, May 7. Ohio--Wauseon, March 7.
Michigan--Saginaw, March 9; Sault Ste. Marie, May 22. Ontario--London,
March 13; Hamilton, April 15; Toronto, April 26. Wisconsin--Ladysmith,
April 23. Minnesota.--Redwing, March 30; St. Cloud, April 1;
Hutchinson, April 14. Kansas--Fort Hays, April 11; Bendena, April 13;
Harper, April 25. Nebraska--Omaha, April 29; Neligh, May 3; Scribner,
May 7. South Dakota--Yankton, April 13; Vermillion, April 29; Sioux
Falls, May 4. North Dakota--Jamestown, April 21; Argusville, May 8;
Fargo, May 9. Manitoba--East Kildonan, May 6; Aweme, May 19. New
Mexico--Glenrio, April 26. Colorado (occasionally winters)--Burlington,
May 7; Lamar, May 11; Denver, May 15. Wyoming--Laramie Peak, May 2;
Careyhurst, May 15; Torrington, May 17. Montana--Albion, May 19; Fort
Custer, May 20.
_Fall migration._--Late dates of fall departure are: Montana--Sun
River, September 5. Wyoming--Laramie, September 4; Wheatland,
September 6; Panco, October 2. Colorado--Greeley, October 1; Denver;,
October 21; Boulder County, October 23. New Mexico--Koehler Junction,
October 24. Manitoba--Margaret, September 20; Aweme, October 8.
North Dakota--Medora, September 18; Wahpeton, September 29. South
Dakota--Sioux Falls, September 20; Harrison, September 28; Yankton,
October 7. Nebraska--Red Cloud, October 3; Blue Springs, October
4. Kansas--Harper, October 15; Lawrence, October 18; Fort Hays,
October 29. Minnesota--Hutchinson, October 20; Minneapolis, October
26. Wisconsin--Prescott, October 10; Reedsburg, October 16; and La
Crosse, October 29. Northern Michigan--Sault Ste. Marie, November 15.
Ontario--Toronto, September 15; Ottawa, September 18; Point Pelee,
October 14. Maine--Skowhegan, October 26. Vermont--Wells River,
September 24; Rutland, October 14. Massachusetts--Springfield, October
9; Boston, October 15. Connecticut--Fairfield, October 8; Hartford,
October 13. Northern New York--Watertown, October 16; Geneva, October
24; Rochester, November 11. Northwestern Pennsylvania--McKeesport,
October 19; Berwyn, November 8; Erie, November 17. New Jersey--Passaic,
October 21; Cape May, October 21; Morristown, November 2.
An examination of the banding files in the Biological Survey adds
but little information to knowledge of the migrations of this bird.
Although it has been banded in fair numbers (more than 1,700 previous
to July 1, 1937) the farthest recovery record is only about 80 miles
south of the point of banding. There are, however, several cases of
return in subsequent seasons to the banding stations.
_Casual records._--Records of this species outside its normal range are
not numerous. A single specimen was taken in the Chiricahua Mountains,
Ariz., in the spring of 1894; one was observed in Salt Lake City, Utah,
in June 1874; and one was noted near Fortine, in northwestern Montana,
on June 18, 1931.
_Egg dates._--Alabama: 12 records, April 20 to July 15; 6 records,
May 26 to June 17, indicating the height of the season.
Illinois: 19 records, May 9 to July 10; 10 records, May 19 to June 15.
Michigan: 16 records, May 9 to August 20; 8 records, May 15 to June 3.
New York: 15 records, May 21 to June 19; 8 records, May 26 to June 5.
South Carolina: 12 records, May 6 to July 2.
BALANOSPHYRA FORMICIVORA FORMICIVORA (Swainson)
ANT-EATING WOODPECKER
HABITS
The type race of the species is now restricted in its distribution
to the region from south-central Texas (Kerr County and the Chisos
Mountains) to eastern and southern Mexico. It differs from the other
races in the width of the white frontal band, the amount of streaking
on the breast and sides, and the amount of yellow in the throat patch,
as well as in size. It differs from _bairdi_ and _aculeata_ in having
the chest mostly streaked, at least on the median portion, instead
of mostly uniform black. The white frontal patch is broader than in
_angustifrons_, and the black band across the female crown is much
wider. It is slightly larger than _aculeata_, and somewhat smaller than
_bairdi_ but decidedly larger than _angustifrons_. Its throat patch is
paler yellow than in _bairdi_ and _angustifrons_.
I cannot find anything of consequence in print relating to the habits
of the race, which probably do not differ materially from the habits
of the species elsewhere. There are two sets of eggs in the Thayer
collection, one of six and one of five eggs, taken in Tamaulipas,
Mexico, on April 18 and 22, 1908; in each case the nest is said to
have been 20 feet from the ground in a pine. The measurements of these
11 eggs average 26.47 by 19.00 millimeters; the eggs showing the four
extremes measure =28.1= by 19.0, 26.7 by =19.3=, =25.9= by =18.9=
millimeters.
DISTRIBUTION
_Range._--Western United States, Central America, and northwestern
South America; nonmigratory.
On the Pacific coast the ant-eating woodpecker ranges through the
Coast and Sierra Nevada ranges =north= to southwestern Oregon (Cow
Creek and Ashland). In the interior it is found =north= to northern
Arizona (Hualapai Mountain, Williams, and Grand Canyon); northern New
Mexico (Largo Canyon and the headwaters of the Gallina River); and
southwestern Texas (Fort Davis and Kerrville). From these regions
the species is found =south= through both eastern and western Mexico
(including Baja California) and other Central American countries, at
least to central Colombia.
Several subspecies of this woodpecker are found only in Central and
South America, but three varieties occur regularly in the United
States, while two others are confined to Baja California. The true
ant-eating woodpecker (_B. f. formicivora_), which ranges through
eastern and southern Mexico, is found also in south-central Texas
(Chisos Mountains and Kerrville). Mearns’s woodpecker (_B. f.
aculeata_) occupies the range in Arizona, New Mexico, and western Texas
(Fort Davis) south through the Mexican States of Sonora, Chihuahua, and
Durango. The California woodpecker (_B. f. bairdi_) is found in the
Pacific coast region from Oregon south to northern Baja California. In
this Mexican State the narrow-fronted woodpecker (_B. f. angustifrons_)
is confined to the region of Cape San Lucas, while the San Pedro
woodpecker (_B. f. martirensis_) is found in the northwestern part of
the area nearly to the United States border.
_Egg dates._--Arizona: 9 records, May 10 to June 10.
California: 66 records, April 2 to June 15; 33 records, April 20 to
May 15, indicating the height of the season. Second and third
broods have been found in September and October.
Baja California: 4 records, May 10 to June 3.
BALANOSPHYRA FORMICIVORA BAIRDI (Ridgway)
CALIFORNIA WOODPECKER
PLATE 28
HABITS
The above common name is well chosen, as this is one of the commonest
and most conspicuous birds throughout its range in California. Anyone
who spends much time afield in the valleys, foothills, and canyons of
southern and western California is sure to see this strikingly colored
and active woodpecker making itself conspicuous among the oaks and
pines; and, where one is seen, there are almost sure to be others, for
it is a sociable species.
Referring to the Lassen Peak region, Grinnell, Dixon, and Linsdale
(1930) say:
Two environmental factors of seeming importance for the
presence of this bird were an available supply of acorns
and wood or bark of sorts into which the birds could bore
storage holes. As to species of oak, out of the six or
more present, our impression remains that no outstanding
choice by the woodpeckers was shown. About as many of the
birds were seen among the black oaks in the vicinity of
Payne Creek P. O., as among the valley oaks around Cone’s.
However, tracks of black oaks recurred east of the main
mountain mass in the section, as along the upper Susan
River and near Eagle Lake, where no California woodpeckers
were ever seen by us. To repeat, none of this species of
woodpecker was seen by us east of about the western edge of
the yellow pine belt (Transition life-zone). * * *
Situations where individuals of this woodpecker were
observed are as follows: top of sycamore; dead sycamore
stub; in cottonwood; about clumps of fruiting mistletoe; at
tips of twigs of large valley oak; in black oak; in blue
oak; on dead upper limb of living blue oak; in orchard
tree; on isolated digger pine; in large yellow pine; at
top of dead incense cedar; on ground at roadside; on fence
post; on barn end; on telephone pole.
_Courtship._--I first became acquainted with this handsome woodpecker
in the Arroyo Seco, on the outskirts of Pasadena, during the winter and
spring of 1929, where I often saw these birds busy with their courtship
activities in the tops of the tall sycamores. They were flying about
among the treetops, making a lot of noise, two males sometimes chasing
a female and showing off their brilliant colors, the white spaces in
their wings and the white rumps being especially conspicuous; doubtless
the red crown and yellow throat, set off by black and white, played an
important part in the display. They reminded me of flickers, as they
danced on, or dodged around, the branches in playful, showy antics.
_Nesting._--_Bendire_ (1895) writes:
In the more southern portions of its range nidification
commences sometimes as early as April, and somewhat later
farther north. The nesting sites are mostly excavated in
white-oak trees, both living and dead, but preferably
one of the former is selected in which the core of the
tree is decayed. It also nests occasionally in sycamores,
cottonwoods, and large willow trees, and more rarely in
telegraph poles. Both sexes assist in the excavation of
the nesting site, as well as in incubation. The entrance
hole is about 1⅗ inches in diameter, perfectly circular,
and is sometimes chiseled through 2 or 3 inches of solid
wood before the softer and decayed core is reached. The
inner cavity is gradually enlarged as it descends, and
varies from 8 to 24 inches in depth, usually being from 4
to 5 inches in diameter at the bottom, where a quantity of
fine chips are allowed to remain, on which the eggs are
deposited.
Milton P. Skinner writes to me: “On May 12, 1933, I found a nest in the
main trunk of an almost dead black oak. The opening, 25 feet above the
ground, seemed very small and was placed on the southeast side of the
tree.
“In the Yosemite Valley, these birds nest in the trunks and large limbs
of the Kellogg oaks, and their abandoned holes may be used by pygmy
owls another year. As a rule, the California woodpeckers and the pygmy
owls show little antagonism toward each other. In spite of this usual
custom of nesting in the oaks, most of the birds I saw in the Yosemite
were actually in the cottonwoods along the river. After some searching,
I found at least one nest there in a short, dead stub of a cottonwood,
on July 24, 1933. I saw one bird fly down and feed another that was
inside, and then fly away. The hole was about 12 feet above the ground
and on the north side of the stub, facing the river and away from the
meadow behind it. All the trees in the vicinity were cottonwoods, but
there was one oak 150 feet east of the nesting site. There were six
other holes in the stub, all on the north side and from 6 to 18 feet
above the ground.”
Grinnell and Storer (1924) write:
The more intensive occupancy of the Yosemite Valley
during recent years and the operations of the government
employees in promptly removing dead but standing trees
to be cut up for wood has operated to the detriment of
the woodpeckers which seek such trees for nesting holes.
So it was no surprise, in May, 1919, to find a number of
telephone or electric power poles near Redwood Lane which
had been prospected for nesting sites by woodpeckers--the
California, to judge from the size of hole and general
location. Dearth of suitable natural sites had forced the
birds to at least investigate these newly established
dead-tree substitutes. With no substitutes at all
available, the only result to be logically looked for,
as a result of man’s interference with the natural order
of affairs, would be the disappearance of woodpeckers.
The question arises here as to the justification of the
administratiton in so altering natural conditions in
National Parks as to threaten the persistence there of any
of its native denizens.
_Eggs._--The California woodpecker lays ordinarily four or five
eggs; six eggs are not very rare; and as many as ten have been found
in a nest, probably the product of two females. The eggs vary from
short-ovate to elliptical-ovate. They are pure white, with very little
or no gloss. The measurements of 52 eggs average 25.98 by 19.78
millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure =29.9= by 19.0,
27.9 by =22.6=, =22.0= by 18.6, and 24.38 by =18.29= millimeters.
_Young._--The period of incubation is said to be about 14 days, in
which both parents assist. Both also help to feed the young. Harriet
Williams Myers (1915) made some interesting observations on a late
brood of young California woodpeckers, which she found in a hole in a
telephone pole, on September 11, between Los Angeles and Pasadena. She
says:
In an hour’s watching the birds fed 28 times, the shortest
interval being one-half minute, the longest eight. In nine
minutes they fed eight times.
On the 15th of the month, when I believe the young must
have been about ten days old, they were fed 24 times in 58
minutes. The food given them now was mostly acorns which
the adults took from the nearby poles, sometimes digging
them out in pieces, and sometimes taking them to the top of
a flat pole where they pounded away for some minutes before
coming to the nest with their bills stuffed full of the
white bits. From this time until the young left the nest
they were fed mostly on these acorns.
One of her most interesting observations was that an apparently young
bird, presumably a fully grown member of an earlier brood, joined the
two parents that were feeding the young in the nest. At one time, this
immature bird entered the nest, while the parents were away, apparently
for the purpose of being fed by them, and remained there for some time.
Meanwhile--
when the adults came to feed they did not go inside but
reached over, fed, and flew away. Three times one of them
did this, but the fourth time, when the male came, he
stood on one side of the hole and I heard him give low,
guttural notes. * * * Presently, the truant young, for such
he proved to be, appeared in the doorway and, with open
mouth, begged for just one bite. * * * But the old bird was
unrelenting and stayed in his position by the hole until
the bird inside, which was undoubtedly a former nestling,
came out and flew onto the wire above, when the adult male
went within.
Just to prove that he was not all baby, the former nestling
turned in and helped feed. Several times he went into
the hole and came directly out, and I might have thought
that he was in there in hopes of getting fed had I not
distinctly seen a big fly in his bill as he entered. Each
time as he bobbed into the hole several white bars showed
plainly on the underside of the outer tail feathers. It was
this marking of a young bird which convinced me that he was
a former nestling. In every other respect he resembled a
male California Woodpecker. Once more, during my watching,
he slipped into the nest, staying eight minutes before they
got him out. The first time it had been twenty minutes.
From the above, and from the observations of Frank A. Leach (1925), to
be referred to later, it seems that the California woodpecker often, if
not regularly, raises two or even three broods in a season.
_Plumages._--The young are hatched naked and blind, but the juvenal
plumage is acquired before the young bird leaves the nest. In this
plumage the young male closely resembles the adult male and the young
female is much like the adult female in general color pattern, but the
red of the crown and nape is duller and more or less mixed with dusky
or black; sometimes the crown is nearly all black mixed with some
scarlet feathers; the colors everywhere are duller, lacking in gloss,
and the plumage is softer, less firm; the yellow of the throat is less
pronounced; the streaks on the breast are less sharply defined; the
tertials and scapulars are tipped with white, and there are narrow
white tips on the two outer tail feathers on each side, but these
tips wear away during winter, or sooner; there are at least two white
spots on each web of the outer tail feather, which are in evidence all
through the first year; as the juvenal wings and tail are retained
until the next summer molt, birds of the year may be thus recognized;
the bill is smaller and weaker than that of the adult. The molt of the
juvenal contour plumage begins in August or September.
Adults have a complete annual molt between July and September, mainly
in August.
_Food._--Some prominent California ornithologists have named this bird
the “California acorn-storing woodpecker,” a rather long but very
appropriate name, for it designates one of its most characteristic
habits and names the largest item in its food supply. W. L. Dawson
(1923) has this to say on the subject:
From time immemorial this bird has riddled the bark of
certain forest trees and stuffed the holes with acorns.
Speculation is still rife as to the cause or occasion or
necessity or purpose of this strange practice, but the fact
is indisputable and the evidence of it widely diffused. * * *
What he accomplishes the photographs show well enough,--the
close, methodical studding of bark or wood of any kind with
acorns, chiefly those of live-oaks, over immense areas.
The cultures, once started, are wrought upon continuously
year by year, as material avails or the colony flourishes.
Live-oaks themselves are the commonest hosts, together
with the white, or post, oak, and the black oak of the
southern counties. After these come sycamore and yellow
pine or, more rarely, eucalyptus. Telegraph and telephone
poles, gables, cornices, and, in fact, any wooden structure
where they are permitted to work, if near the source of
acorn supply, may come in for ornamentation. On a small
square-sawed telephone pole near Marysville I found sixty
acorns (and pecans purloined from a neighboring orchard)
imbedded in a space five inches wide and two feet long.
At that rate the pole carried some 1500 of these tiny
storehouses.
In Tecolote Canyon, west of Santa Barbara, there is a giant
sycamore which I count one of the handsomest examples of
Carpintero’s workmanship--an unbroken shaft, at least
forty feet high and three feet across the inlaid face,
covered with a “solid” mass of acorns totalling, say, some
20,000. Strawberry Valley in the San Jacinto Mountains
appears to be a paradise for the California Woodpecker.
Here majestic oaks (_Quercus californica_) alternate
with still more majestic pines (_Pinus ponderosa_), the
former for sustenance and the latter for storage, and the
doughty “California” is probably the most abundant bird
in the valley. The boles of the most enormous pines are
methodically riddled with their acorn-carrying niches, and
in some of the trees the work is carried through from base
to crown. In one such tree I estimated that there were
imbedded no less than 50,000 acorns.
Dr. William E. Ritter has made an intensive study of this interesting
habit of the California woodpecker and has published the results of
his observations and theories in three extensive papers (1921, 1922,
1938). There is much food for thought in these scholarly papers, to
which the reader is referred, but space here will permit only brief
quotations from or references to them. As to whether the hole drilling
is injurious to the trees, he says (1921): “Although I have examined
many storage pines in widely separated localities, I have never seen
anything even suggestive of harm to the trees from the holes. Never,
so far as I have noticed, do the holes pierce through into the deeper
living layers of the bark.” He noticed that “almost without exception
the nuts were inserted tip in and base out, most of them fitting the
hole snugly,” having been driven in good and hard, and flush with
the surface of the bark, or even countersunken below it; and that
“to a certain extent the store holes are made to fit the size of the
acorns they are to receive”; this latter point was discovered when
he noted that, in a region where the black oak (_Quercus kelloggii_)
predominated, the holes were considerably larger than they were in
the live-oak region, the acorns of the black oak being sharply larger
than those of the live oak. In some cases the acorns were not driven
in flush with the bark, the base being left protruding somewhat and
thus leaving them vulnerable to pilfering by rodents and perhaps
some birds; in this connection, he says: “Conclusive evidence that
nut-eating rodents (squirrels, rats) prey upon the acorns stored by the
woodpeckers was first obtained on the present visit. Two trees were
found on which the bark immediately around acorn holes had been gnawed
by rodents, as unmistakably proved by the tooth marks. The acorns were
gone from some of these holes, but not from all, thus showing that the
marauders had failed in some of their efforts.”
Summarizing his first paper, he makes the following statements: