resembles quite closely the eastern Red-headed Woodpecker
(_M. erythrocephalus_), being quite as lively and of an
equally playful disposition. Some of its actions, however,
are very curious, the most remarkable of them being a
certain elevated flight, performed in a peculiar floating
manner, its progress apparently laborious, as if struggling
against the wind, or uncertain, like a bird which had
lost its course and become confused. At such a time it
presents the appearance of a Crow high in the air, while
the manner of its flight is strikingly similar to that
of Clarke’s Nutcracker (_Picicorvus columbianus_). * * *
After performing these evolutions to its satisfaction, it
descends in gradually contracting circles, often to the
tree from which it started.
Herbert Brown (1902) evidently saw a similar flight, of which he says:
“In flight they have little or none of that laborious undulating
movement so common to its kind, but in action and flight they seem
possessed of peculiarities supposed to belong to birds of a totally
different family. Today not less than fifty of them were circling
through the air, at an elevation of about 500 feet, with all the ease
and grace of the Falconidae. Not a stroke of the wing was apparent.
* * * Those high in the air were sailing in great circles. They kept
it up indefinitely and had the appearance of being so many miniature
crows. When sailing they appear to open their wings to the fullest
extent possible.”
Mr. Neff (1928) states that “these birds love the hottest sunshine,
and are commonly found perched in the tiptop of some tall partly-dead
tree, whence they can scan the air for insect food. They rarely sit
vertically upright on a branch as do most other woodpeckers, but perch
cross-wise with ease. They seldom climb up the trunk or branches,
although perfectly capable of doing so, and are rarely heard tapping.”
They perch occasionally on wires, an uncommon habit with other
woodpeckers.
Major Bendire (1895) observes: “On its breeding grounds Lewis’s
woodpecker appears to be a stupid and rather sluggish bird; it does not
show nearly as much parental affection as most of the other members
of this family, and is much less demonstrative. It is not at all shy
at such times, and will often cling to some convenient limb on the
same tree while its eggs are being taken, without making the least
complaint.”
_Voice._--Bendire (1895) says: “It is by far the most silent woodpecker
I have met, and, aside from a low twittering, it rarely utters a loud
note. Even when suddenly alarmed, and when it seeks safety in flight,
the shrill ‘huit, huit’ given on such occasions by nearly all of our
woodpeckers is seldom uttered by it. Only when moving about in flocks,
on their first arrival in the spring and during the mating season,
which follows shortly afterwards, does it indulge in a few rattling
call notes, resembling those of the Red-shafted Flicker, and it drums
more or less, in a lazy sort of way, on the dead top of a tall pine, or
a suitable limb of a cottonwood or willow.”
Ralph Hoffmann (1927) writes: “For a great part of the year the Lewis
woodpecker is a silent bird, uttering not even a call note, but in the
mating season it utters a harsh _chirr_ and a high-pitched squalling
_chee-up_, repeated at rather long intervals. Adult birds utter near
the nest a series of sharp metallic cries like the syllable _ick, ick,
ick_, which when rapidly repeated become a rattle. The young in the
nest utter the usual hissing sound of young woodpeckers.”
_Field marks._--Lewis’s woodpecker should be easily recognized. At a
distance it appears likes a black bird, the back and the upper and
lower surfaces of the wings being black, with no conspicuous white
showing anywhere, and with a crowlike flight, broad wings and black
tail. At short range, the greenish sheen of the back may glisten in the
sunlight, and the silvery gray collar and pinkish underparts may be
seen, as well as the gray upper breast and perhaps the red face.
_Fall._--This woodpecker seems to be a highly migratory species. From
the northern parts of its range it disappears almost entirely during
winter; and throughout its entire range it is given to extensive
wanderings, being very abundant in certain localities during fall and
winter in certain seasons and at other seasons entirely absent. The
species is highly gregarious in fall, wandering about in large flocks
in search for suitable food supplies.
Mr. Rathbun tells me that this woodpecker is found in Washington from
April to about November and occasionally is seen in winter, and says:
“In this part [western] of the State the fall migration of this bird
seems to begin early in September. Once, very early in the month,
on our arrival at a lake not far from Seattle, we noticed a large
number of these woodpeckers in three or four deciduous trees along
the shore. Occasionally, a few of the birds would make short flights
after insects in the air, but by far the larger number were more or
less inactive and appeared to be resting, as some remained motionless
where perched. And when one did change its position, it did this in
a listless manner. Our arrival at the lake was rather late in the
afternoon, and from the actions of the birds as a whole we gained the
impression that they must have made quite an extended flight that day
on their movement southward. On several other occasions in September we
have seen this woodpecker as it was migrating. In each case a good many
were in company, though rather loosely associated. And once, moving in
a southerly direction with them for a very brief time, were numbers of
nighthawks, swallows, and Vaux’s swifts flying around for insects.”
Mr. Neff (1928) writes:
This species, more than all its kin, moves in flocks in
autumn. After the nesting season it gathers into flocks
of from 10 to 300 or more. In such numbers it drops down
into the fruit districts of southern Oregon and of northern
California, and disaster results. * * *
On August 29, the writer, accompanied by Mr. Richardson,
made a trip to Lake of the Woods, Klamath County. Just
south of Ashland a few scattered individuals were seen. As
the Cascade summit was approached many were seen in the
open fields and meadows. In the flats near the lake, and
in the open meadows near Rainbow Creek, numbers were found
feeding on the mountain huckleberries. Returning to Ashland
on September 1, huge flocks of these birds could be seen
moving steadily toward the lower Valley. * * *
On September 7, also, the growers in the vicinity of
Medford reported the arrival of the first birds there.
Flocks were present until September 19, when almost every
bird in the area disappeared. A few scattering individuals
were left in various foothill areas, but these left during
November. The areas in which they wintered so abundantly
during the 1924-5 season were totally deserted during the
1925-6 season, and not until spring did they return to this
area.
Herbert Brown (1902) states that Lewis’s woodpeckers appeared in large
numbers, during the fall of 1884, in the Santa Cruz Valley, Ariz., the
first he had seen there for 20 years. He saw the first one on September
28 and ten on the 30th. They were very abundant at times during October
but disappeared at intervals. They were last seen on November 16.
_Winter._--W. E. D. Scott (1886) says of its winter habits in Arizona:
About my house it generally appeared about the 20th of
September, and some years was very abundant. It stays as
late as April 20, and then is not seen again till fall,
though I have seen the species in the pine region above me
late in the spring. In 1884, there was an unprecedented
abundance of the species throughout the entire region under
consideration. They came in countless numbers about the
ranches, both on the San Pedro and near Tucson. Arriving
early in September, they did great injury to the fruit
crops raised in these regions, and I heard much complaint
of them. In the oak woods they were equally abundant,
living almost altogether on acorns, but spending much of
the warmer portion of the day catching insects on the wing,
very much as any of the larger flycatchers do, only that
on leaving the perch of observation or rest, the flight is
much more prolonged than in the flycatchers that I have
seen.
Lewis’s woodpeckers sometimes remain in winter, in small numbers, as
far north as the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia. According to
Suckley and Cooper (1860), they are “constant winter residents” near
Fort Dalles on the Columbia River. Of their winter habits, Suckley
writes:
They seem in winter to be semi-gregarious, flying singly,
yet still keeping more or less in each other’s company.
Their flight at this season is high and very erratic,
resembling much, in its characteristic peculiarities,
that of the swallow On warm days they keep up a lively
chattering noise, unlike, in character, that of any other
woodpecker that I have heard. During the cold season they
are so shy that it is difficult to shoot them, as at the
least alarm they betake themselves to the tops of the
highest trees in the vicinity. They at that season subsist
principally upon the larvae of insects, found in the cracks
and fissures of the “red pine” of the country. I dissected
a specimen killed at Fort Dalles, January 9, 1855, finding
the coats of the stomach (gizzard) very thick and muscular,
its cavity filled with the white larvae of insects,
together with fine gravel.
DISTRIBUTION
_Range._--Western United States, southwestern Canada, and northwestern
Mexico; migratory in the northern areas.
_Breeding range._--Lewis’s woodpecker breeds =north= to southern
British Columbia (Courtenay, Okanagan Landing, and Arrow Lake);
Montana (Fortine, Flathead Lake, and Great Falls); and southwestern
South Dakota (Elk Mountains). =East= to southwestern South Dakota
(Elk Mountains); southeastern Wyoming (Laramie Hills and Laramie);
eastern Colorado (Boulder, Denver, Colorado Springs, Boone, and Rouse
Junction); and New Mexico (Bojuaque and Sacramento Mountain). =South=
to southern New Mexico (Sacramento Mountain); Arizona (San Francisco
Mountain and Fort Whipple); and southern California (Paso Robles).
=West= through the coast ranges of California, Oregon, Washington, and
British Columbia (Victoria, Comox, and Courtenay).
_Winter range._--On the Pacific coast the species is resident =north=
to the Columbia River (Portland and The Dalles, Oreg.) and is found
=south= at this season to northern Baja California (Catavina and
Guadalupe Valley). During two different winters these woodpeckers were
recorded wintering in southern British Columbia (Alowna in 1920-21,
Vernon in 1928-29, and Summerland 1928-29).
In the Rocky Mountain region it winters =north= to north-central
Colorado (Boulder and Denver) and is found =south= to central Texas
(San Angelo); southern New Mexico (Guadalupe Mountains); and northern
Sonora (5 miles southwest of Nogales, Ariz.).
_Spring migration._--At neither season is the migratory movement
extensive, but the following early dates of arrival in the
northern parts of the breeding range may be considered typical:
Wyoming--Wheatland, April 15; Laramie, May 5; Yellowstone Park, May 14.
Montana--Fortine, April 27; Big Hole River, May 1; Corvallis, May 6.
Washington--Grand Dalles, April 23; Prescott, April 26; Tacoma, April
27. British Columbia--Okanagan Landing, April 20; Arrow Lakes, April
28; Sumas, May 3.
_Fall migration._--The following are late dates of departure in autumn:
British Columbia--Arrow Lakes, October 16; Kelowna, October 23; William
Head, November 23. Washington--Prescott, September 18; North Dalles,
October 10; Yakima, October 29. Montana--Columbia Falls, September 9;
Missoula, September 17; Gold Creek, September 21. Wyoming--Laramie,
September 24; Careyhurst, September 26; Wheatland, October 4.
_Casual records._--Lewis’s woodpecker has been taken on several
occasions at points east of its normal range. Among these records are
Alberta, Castor, May 7 and 9, 1924; Big Hay Lake, October 12, 1930; and
Lesser Slave Lake, May 22, 1928; Saskatchewan, one specimen at Herschel
on September 23, 1914, three in the Qu’Appelle Valley, one from near
Eastend on September 19, 1915, two in the same vicinity on September
24, 1929, and two in the summer of 1931; North Dakota, a specimen was
taken at Neche, on October 13, 1916, and one was noted at Grafton on
October 10, 1926; Nebraska, recorded at Long Pine during the winter
of 1898-99; Kansas, a specimen at Ellis on May 6, 1878, and another
near Lawrence on November 7, 1908; eastern Oklahoma, one was carefully
observed near Tulsa on December 24, 1922; Iowa, recorded at Sioux City
from November 28, 1928, to April 7, 1929; Illinois, one recorded from
Chicago on May 24, 1923, and another from Argo on May 14, 1932; and
Rhode Island, a specimen collected at Mount Pleasant, near Providence,
on November 16, 1928.
_Egg dates._--California: 19 records, April 18 to June 10; 10 records,
May 3 to 28, indicating the height of the season.
Colorado: 30 records, May 8 to August 6; 15 records, June 2 to 20.
Oregon: 18 records, May 17 to June 24; 9 records, May 30 to June 10.
British Columbia: 6 records, May 31 to June 15.
CENTURUS CAROLINUS (Linnaeus)
RED-BELLIED WOODPECKER
PLATES 30, 31
HABITS
This showy and noisy woodpecker enjoys a wide distribution throughout
much of the eastern half of the United States, except the most northern
and northeastern States. Throughout much of this range, it is one
of the commonest and most conspicuous of the woodpeckers. Arthur H.
Howell (1932) writes: “In Florida, red-bellied woodpeckers are found
chiefly in hammocks, groves, and wet bottomland timber, less commonly
in the pine woods and the cypress swamps. * * * These woodpeckers are
not particularly shy, and they often visit dooryards and orchards.” In
Texas, according to George Finlay Simmons (1925), its favorite haunts
are “heavily timbered bottom lands or swampy woods; open deciduous or
mixed coniferous woodlands with very large trees; heavy woods of oak
and elm along river and creek bottoms; shade trees and dead trees in
town.” Major Bendire (1895) says: “Throughout the northern portions of
its range it prefers deciduous or mixed forests to coniferous, but in
the south it is apparently as common in the flat, low pine woods as in
the oak hammocks. Newly cleared lands in which numbers of girdled trees
still remain standing are favorite resorts for this as well as other
species.”
_Nesting._--Bendire (1895) writes:
Birds that migrate from the northern portions of their
range usually arrive on their breeding grounds rather
early, sometimes by March 20, and shortly afterwards
preparations for nesting are commenced. A suitable site is
readily found in the decayed top of some tree, or in an
old stump, near a stream along the edges of a pasture, or
close to some road, and less often farther in the center
of a forest. Deciduous trees, especially the softer wooded
ones, such as elms, basswood, maple, chestnut, poplar,
willow, and sycamore, are preferred to the harder kinds,
such as ash, hickory, oak, etc. In northern Florida they
nest frequently in pines. Several excavations are often
found in the same tree in which the nest is located, and
occasionally the same site, with slight repairs, is used
for more than one season. * * *
Both sexes assist in excavating the nesting site, as well
as in incubation, which lasts about fourteen days. The
sites selected are usually from 5 to 70 feet from the
ground, and resemble those of our Woodpeckers in every
respect, averaging about 12 inches in depth. It takes from
seven to ten days to excavate a nest, and frequently the
birds rest a week afterwards before beginning to lay; an
egg is deposited daily, and from three to five are usually
laid to a set, rarely more.
Mr. Howell (1932) says that in Florida “almost any kind of a tree
will satisfy the birds for a nesting site, but a partly decayed stub
seemingly is preferred. Where cabbage palms occur, a dead stub of that
tree is often chosen, and cavities in oaks, cypresses, pines, and
other trees are frequently utilized, the nesting hole being anywhere
from 5 to 70 feet from the ground, usually, however, under 40 feet.
Nesting begins in April and continues until June.” The only nest I ever
examined in Florida was found on April 25, 1903, on one of the Bowlegs
Keys, in the Bay of Florida; it was placed in a dead branch of a black
mangrove; the cavity was about 14 inches deep and contained four fresh
eggs.
Mr. Simmons (1925) says that in Texas this woodpecker nests in “dead
limbs of stumps of hackberry, Chinaberry, cedar elm, pecan, and
American water elm trees, particularly the rotten, shaky, skeleton
upper-parts of living hackberry trees in backyards, or in telegraph
poles along city streets and alleys.” In a small village in Texas I
once found a nest containing three eggs in a fencepost near one of the
houses.
Various observers have given quite different measurements of the
nesting cavity. Mr. Simmons (1925) says: “Entrance, diameter 1.75 to
1.96. Cavity, depth 10 to 12; widest diameter near bottom (3 above
eggs) 5.25.” William H. Fisher (1903) found a nest in Maryland in which
“the opening measured 2 by 2¼ inches and it was 5 inches from the outer
edge of the hole to the back wall.”
Charles R. Stockard (1904) located a nest in Mississippi, of which he
says:
In the spring of 1900 a nest of this species was located
in a dead cottonwood tree which stood in an open pasture.
The nest was a burrow fifteen inches deep with a perfectly
circular entrance about forty feet above the ground. A set
of five eggs was taken from it on April 24. The entrance
being small it was found necessary to cut it larger so as
to admit my hand. Twenty-three days later the same nest
contained a second set of five eggs, slightly incubated.
The enlarging of the entrance evidently had no ill effect
except for the fact that the burrow had been deepened
several inches, probably to prevent an extra amount of
light on the floor of the nest. These birds seem to gauge
the depth of their excavations more by the amount of light
admitted than from any instinct to dig a certain distance.
For example, burrows that had their entrance just below a
limb or were situated in shady woods were noticed, as a
rule, to be shallower than those located in exposed fields
or on the sunny side of the tree.
Bayard H. Christy (1931) describes a nest found in Pennsylvania as
follows:
The hole was in the top of a great primeval white oak,
standing in the bottom of a wooded ravine and at the edge
of a neglected clearing, in southern Beaver County. I had
discovered it a month or six weeks before, attracted by
the calls of the bird. The hole was drilled in a dead and
vertically standing bough about eight inches in diameter,
in the very centre of the crown of the oak, and was, I
should say, about eighty feet above the ground; it was
drilled in the northern side of the bough, and beneath the
talus of a branch which had died and fallen away, leaving
a knot-hole a few inches above. The woodpeckers’ hole was
newly cut, and the bark around and beneath it had been
trimmed by use or by design, so that the region about
formed a tawny patch upon the grey of the bough.
S. A. Grimes (1932) mentions four cases that have come under his
observation, in which red-bellied woodpeckers have occupied old nests
of red-cockaded woodpeckers in Florida. F. M. Phelps (1914) mentions
another similar case.
_Eggs._--The red-bellied woodpecker lays three to eight eggs, usually
four or five. It is a persistent layer; if the first set is taken, it
will lay a second set within a week or two, generally in the same nest.
Mr. Stockard (1904) reports his experience with a pair that laid four
sets of eggs, 19 eggs in all, and all in the same nest.
Bendire (1895) says that “the eggs are white, mostly ovate in shape;
the shell is fine grained and rather dull looking, with little or
no gloss, resembling in this respect the eggs of Lewis’s woodpecker
more than those of the red-headed species.” I have seen eggs that are
elliptical-ovate in shape, and decidedly glossy; eggs that have been
incubated for some time become more glossy than when first laid. The
measurements of 50 eggs average 25.06 by 18.78 millimeters; the eggs
showing the four extremes measure =27.00= by 19.79, 25.15 by =23.62=,
=23.00= by 18.70, and 23.11 by =16.76= millimeters.
_Young._--The period of incubation is said to be about 14 days. Both
sexes assist in this and in the feeding and care of the young. In the
more northern portions of its range, probably only one brood is reared
in a season, but in the South this woodpecker is said to raise two and
sometimes three broods.
_Plumages._--Like other woodpeckers, the young are hatched naked and
blind, but the juvenal plumage is acquired before the young leave the
nest. In this the young male closely resembles the adult female, but
the colors are duller, the barring is less distinct, and the white bars
are suffused with brownish white; there are indistinct dusky shaft
streaks on the chest and little or no red on the abdomen, which, if
present, is more orange or yellowish; there is no clear red on the
head, but the gray crown is sometimes suffused centrally with dark red
mixed with the gray; the hind neck is often suffused with pinkish or
yellowish. The juvenal female is similar to the young male, but the
top of the head is darker gray, or dusky, and there is less reddish
or yellowish suffusion anywhere. The juvenal plumage is apparently
worn through the first fall; I have seen it as late as December 20,
but Forbush (1927) says that it is shed between August and October. In
the first winter plumage, there is an advance toward maturity, young
males acquiring more red on the crown and occiput, and young females
on the latter. There is probably a more or less continuous molt during
winter, or a partial prenuptial molt in early spring, by which young
birds become practically indistinguishable from adults. Adults have a
complete postnuptial molt late in summer and early in fall.
_Food._--Bendire (1895) says:
Its food consists of about equal proportions of animal and
vegetable matter, and it feeds considerably on the ground.
Insects, like beetles, ants, grasshoppers, different
species of flies, and larvae are eaten by them, as well
as acorns, beechnuts, pine seeds, juniper berries, wild
grapes, blackberries, strawberries, pokeberries, palmetto
and sour-gum berries, cherries, and apples. In the South
it has acquired a liking for the sweet juice of oranges
and feeds to some extent on them; but as it always returns
to the same one, until this ceases to yield any more
juice, the damage done in this is slight. It has also been
observed drinking the sweet sap from the troughs in sugar
camps. The injury it commits by the little fruit it eats
during the season is fully atoned for by the numerous
insects and their larvae which it destroys at the same
time, and I therefore consider this handsome Woodpecker
fully worthy of protection.
An examination of 22 stomachs by Professor Beal (1895) showed: “Animal
matter (insects) 26 percent and vegetable matter 74 percent. A small
quantity of gravel was found in 7 stomachs, but was not reckoned as
food. Ants were found in 14 stomachs, and amounted to 11 percent of
the whole food. Adult beetles stand next in importance, aggregating
7 percent of all food, while larval beetles only reach 3 percent.
Caterpillars had been taken by only 2 birds, but they had eaten so many
that they amounted to 4 percent of the whole food. The remaining animal
food is made up of small quantities of bugs(_Hemiptera_), crickets
(_Orthoptera_), and spiders, with a few bones of a small tree frog
found in 1 stomach taken in Florida.”