Part 11

With the first molt, the red crown patch is lost.

It is the belief of the writer, without sufficient specimens properly to verify it, that the cockades of the full adult male plumage are not attained until at least the third molt. Without careful dissection and sex determination of the immature birds, a fact notoriously difficult to the average ornithologist, the young of both sexes, after the crown patch is lost and the cockades have not appeared, would be indistinguishable.

_Food._--The food, like that of most woodpeckers, consists primarily of larvae of various wood-boring insects, although beetles and grubs of other kinds as well as ants, grasshoppers, crickets, and caterpillars are frequently taken. An interesting habit of the red-cockaded woodpecker is that of going into the cornfields throughout the South at the time when the corn is at the roasting-ear stage and when many of the ears are infested with a worm that damages the grain to a very considerable extent. This habit is reported by Billy Ward (1930), of Timmonsville, S. C., and by Edward Dingle (1926), of Mount Pleasant, S. C., who says, “The Red-cockaded Woodpecker (_Phrenopicus borealis_) is very commonly found in cornfields during the time the corn is in the ear; in fact, the bird spends a large part of its time at this season in extracting the worms that bore into the ears of corn. I have often, at short distance, watched them engaged in this valuable work.” They also feed on pine mast, the small wild grape, pokeberries, and other small wild fruit. I have never seen them in orchards or in fig trees, where the red-headed woodpecker is frequently found feeding.

As far as is known, this species does not visit cultivated fields, except as above referred to, or orchards and is not destructive to fruit and deserves to be regarded as wholly beneficial. This statement takes into account the fact that a number of observers say that they will continue to bore into certain pines that they have selected for a nesting site until the tree is killed. The fact is, however, that the tree is diseased and unsound before the woodpecker begins to utilize it and is already worthless for lumber, so that this species seems worthy of complete protection.

_Behavior._--The bird is strikingly gregarious as compared with other woodpeckers and is ordinarily to be found in small groups of six, eight, or even ten individuals, which seem to keep in continuous touch with one another, calling back and forth, sounding their drum roll on resonant timber and apparently not satisfied unless assured of the near presence of the group.

This behavior is no doubt due to the fact that the family remains together until early in winter, although family groups are probably joined by other individuals until the number above referred to is attained. Numerous observers speak of the frequent association of the red-cockaded woodpecker with other birds. This to the mind of the writer, however, is purely accidental and is due to the fact that there are certain species of birds that inhabit the open pineries and have common feeding ground and habitat. It is true that one often sees bluebirds, tufted titmice, white-breasted and brown-headed nuthatches, and red-cockaded woodpeckers in the same woodland and that when sitting quietly and concealed all the species mentioned pass in review before the observer, but probably it is not a true gregariousness that embraces all these various species; rather the restlessness that so frequently seems to possess the avian population of a given tract of woods communicates itself from one to the other and the entire avifauna of a limited patch of woodland begins to move in a certain direction perhaps because of some alarm which has been communicated from one member of the group to the others.

These woodpeckers are exceedingly active, galloping from one tree to another and rapidly ascending it in quest of food or apparently often merely to secure a better observation point somewhere near the top of the tree. Their usual custom is to ascend the tree in spirals, although they have frequently been observed to continue a straight course up the trunk particularly when feeding. The bird may be described as wary rather than shy and is most adept at the familiar woodpecker trick of keeping the trunk of the tree between an approaching observer and itself.

As a rule they do not feed close to the ground, nor have I ever observed one on the ground even after the burning of a woodland, at which time the flicker and the red-bellied woodpecker may both be observed on the ground searching for grubs and insects killed by the blaze. Dr. Irving Phinizy (MS.) states that he has on several occasions observed the red-cockaded woodpecker descend a tree in a series of backward hops. This the writer has never observed. Arthur H. Howell (1932) states that the ivorybill inches backward down a tree, a somewhat different procedure. Frequently also they are observed, particularly when feeding near the top of a pine and out toward the end of a limb, to descend the hanging limb nuthatch fashion. Much of their feeding is done in the highest branches of the trees, and they seem to have a predilection for remaining there, spending a considerable portion of their time in the very crown of the tree, where they are very difficult to see.

They are exceedingly quarrelsome, particularly during the breeding season, yet their quarrels do not seem to be so serious or so prolonged as those of the red-headed woodpecker; and not infrequently, after the lapse of a very little time, birds that have been scolding one another most extensively again alight on the same pine tree and go about their respective businesses in perfect amity.

C. J. Maynard (1896) states, concerning its habits, as follows:

Wilson called the Cockaded Woodpeckers, _Picus querulus_, and this seems, at first glance, to be a most appropriate name, for, of all the family, these are not only the most noisy, but their notes are given in a decidedly fretful tone as if the birds were constantly in an irritable state of mind. It must have been upon the impulse of the moment, however, that the Pioneer Ornithologist gave them the name of Querulus Woodpeckers, for a close study of their habits gives a very different impression of them. They are, in fact, a most jovial class of birds, being almost constantly engaged in sporting about the tops of tall pines or chasing one another from tree to tree, uttering their peevish sounding notes very frequently when in the best humor. The noise is more noticeable because they congregate in flocks, and it is quite rare to find even a pair without other companions. They are also fond of the company of other members of the family and will even associate with the Jays, Blue Birds, or Warblers. This gregarious instinct does not forsake them during the breeding season, for they build in detached communities. The nests are almost always in living pines, often thirty or forty feet from the ground; thus, as the trunks of these trees are covered with a smooth bark, it is quite difficult to climb them and, when the nests are reached it is not easy to cut the hard wood, especially as the straight trunks afford no foot-hold.

In flight, the cockaded woodpeckers resemble the downy but when they alight they strike the object upon which they wish to rest very hard. Like the preceding species, they are also exceedingly agile, moving spirally up the tall tree trunks with great celerity. Although they will occasionally alight near the ground, yet they spend the greater part of their time in the tops of the lofty pines; in fact, they pass a large portion of their lives there, for they are seldom, if ever, found elsewhere than in the piney woods and they inhabit this kind of woodland even to the extreme southern portion of the main-land of Florida.

The bird is resident throughout its normal range, although David V. Hembree, of Roswell, Ga., in the very foothills of the Appalachian Range, a lifelong student and collector of birds, writes me, “This bird does not breed in this locality. I have never seen a nest. A few are found here, nearly always males in April or May, and I have always thought them to be migrants or strays from their regular range.”

In common with the other small black and white woodpeckers, this species carries the vernacular name of sapsucker and in the main is not differentiated from the others, although one astute lumberman once said to me: “Speaking of sapsuckers, there _is_ a piney-woods sapsucker which is different from the others, leastways he acts different.”

_Voice._--The voice is variously described by different observers-- “harsh and discordant,” “almost exactly resembling the calls of the Brownheaded Nuthatch,” “resembling the yank-yank of a White-breasted Nuthatch,” “they have sharp calls more like loud sparrow alarms than woodpecker notes,” “resembling the querulous cries of young birds.”

The bird is noisy, and its call notes and scolding notes are to the ear of the writer quite radically different, the scolding note being more prolonged, somewhat rolling in character and lower in pitch. There is a definite nasal character to a note that to that extent does resemble the notes of the nuthatch. The note is quite characteristic and when once learned is distinguishable with ease from that of the other small woodpeckers. It resembles more the high note of some small woodwind instrument than anything else, having a definite clarinetlike quality.

Descriptions of bird notes are notoriously variable because of the variability of the human ear, and many attempts at phonetic reproduction of the bird notes are unsuccessful, and when, as is so often done, the attempt is directed to reproduction in syllables, the result is usually a futile and meaningless onomatopoeia.

DISTRIBUTION

_Range._--Southeastern United States; nonmigratory.

The range of the red-cockaded woodpecker extends =north= to northeastern Oklahoma (Copan); southern Missouri (Shannon County); Tennessee (Beersheba and Allardt); and North Carolina (Red Springs and Beaufort). =East= on the Atlantic coast from North Carolina (Beaufort) to southern Florida (Long Pine Key). =South= on the Gulf coast from the Florida Keys (Long Pine Key) to southeastern Texas (Houston). =West= to Texas (Houston); northwestern Louisiana (Mansfield); probably western Arkansas (Mena); and eastern Oklahoma (Tulsa and Copan).

_Casual records._--It seems probable that this species may breed or upon occasion has bred in the vicinity of Raleigh, N. C., as it was noted there several times in April from 1890 to 1898. It also has been reported as seen at Piney Creek, N. C., on July 6, 1932, and on September 12, 1933.

A specimen in the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia was collected near that city in 1861; one in the collection of the Ohio State University was taken near Columbus, Ohio, on March 15, 1872. According to Stone (1909) the collection of George N. Lawrence contained a specimen taken near Hoboken, N. J.

_Egg dates._--Florida: 30 records, April 3 to May 28; 15 records, April 29 to May 20, indicating the height of the season. South Carolina: 14 records, April 27 to May 28.

DRYOBATES SCALARIS SYMPLECTUS Oberholser

TEXAS WOODPECKER

HABITS

This is the subspecies that was formerly known as Baird’s woodpecker, _Dryobates scalaris bairdi_, which was then understood to be the resident bird of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. But when Dr. H. C. Oberholser (1911b) revised the _scalaris_ group, the name _bairdi_ was restricted to the bird of central Mexico, and the Texas bird was described, as a new subspecies, under the above name. It was characterized as follows:

Resembling _Dryobates scalaris cactophilus_, but male smaller; upper parts lighter, the white bars wider, the black bars narrower, and with more white on pileum; and sides of breast less often _streaked_ (mostly spotted). * * *

This new subspecies differs from _Dryobates scalaris bairdi_, from Hidalgo, much as does _Dryobates scalaris cactophilus_, except that it is smaller, and still more extensively white on all the upper parts.

This race reaches its extreme development in Texas; and specimens from central Tamaulipas and central Nuevo Leon are not so light above, showing a tendency toward _Dryobates scalaris bairdi_. They are also somewhat more smoky below. There is, however, no difference in size between examples from Texas and Tamaulipas.

The range of the Texas woodpecker extends northward into southeastern Colorado and southward into southern Tamaulipas. George Finlay Simmons (1925) says that in Texas it is “rather general in distribution and in choice of habitat; somewhat open post oak woods and oak upland gravel terraces; mesquite forests; hackberry shade trees in town; mesquite association pasturelands; open woods not far from water; marginal timber along streams. In the hills, cottonwoods and oaks along stream bottoms; wooded slopes of gorges. In winter, leafless city shade hackberry trees.”

The Texas woodpecker is widely distributed and fairly common all over Texas, except in the extreme eastern and extreme western portions; it is a well known and familiar bird, just as our eastern downy woodpecker is in the East; it is locally known as the “Texan sapsucker” or “ladder-backed woodpecker.” Most of its habits are similar to those of the cactus woodpecker, but it seems to enjoy a somewhat more diversified habitat and is more inclined to forage and nest in larger trees; it is not so strictly confined to the deserts and their environs.

_Nesting._--Mr. Simmons (1925) says that the nest is located from “4 to 25, average 12, feet from ground, in rotten stubs or dead and partly decayed branches of oak, mesquite, hackberry, and willow trees, usually alongside lake, river, creek, or ravine; when suitable trees are not to be found, nests in cedar fence posts or telegraph poles along roadsides; when in mesquite tree on mesquite-covered prairie, entrance of cavity on under side of low, drooping limb. * * * Entrance diameter 1.50. Depth of cavity 7 to 8, rarely 10.”

_Eggs._--The Texas woodpecker lays 2 to 6 eggs, Usually 4 or 5, rarely as many as 7. These are indistinguishable from the eggs of the cactus woodpecker. The measurements of 51 eggs average 20.50 by 15.83 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure =22.86= by 15.75, 20.32 by =17.02=, =17.27= by 15.49, and 19.05 by =14.73= millimeters.

_Food._--Mr. Simmons (1925) says that it “searches high up on the knotty trunks of oak trees in open groves for larvae and eggs of injurious wood-boring insects, for the adults of similar as well as other insects, and for weevils and ants.”

_Voice._--Simmons (1925) says that this is “usually a thin, high-pitched, shrill _cheek_; _tcheek, queep_ or _queep-queep_, uttered as the bird gives a hop in its progress up the tree-trunk. Sometimes an incredibly rapid, shrill, ringing, even, not-so-high-pitched _cheeky-cheeky-cheeky-cheeky-cheeky_ or _tchee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-deet_; less commonly, _chickp, chickp, chick-chick-chick-chick-chick-chick-chick-chick_. Drums rapidly with its bill on dead limb of tree at any time of year.”

DISTRIBUTION

_Range._--Southwestern United States, Mexico, and British Honduras; nonmigratory.

The range of this woodpecker extends =north= to southern California (Hesperia and Needles); southern Nevada (Upper Cottonwood Springs); southern Utah (Virgin River Valley); and probably southeastern Colorado (Swink). =East= to probably southeastern Colorado (Swink and Springfield); western Oklahoma (Kenton and Hollis); Texas (San Angelo, Kerrville, Boerne, San Antonio, Corpus Christi, and Brownsville); Tamaulipas (Presas and Ciudad Victoria); Yucatan (Chichen-Itza); Quintana Roo (Cozumel Island); and British Honduras (Manatee Lagoon and Ycacos Lagoon). =South= to British Honduras (Ycacos Lagoon); Jalisco (Zapotlan); Nayarit (Tres Marias Islands); and Baja California (Cape San Lucas). =West= to Baja California (Cape San Lucas, San Jose del Cabo, El Sauz, San Fernando, and Cocopah); and southern California (Paint Canyon, White Water, and Hesperia).

The range as above outlined applies to the entire species, which has, however, been divided into 15 or more subspecies or geographic races. Most of these, including the typical variety (_Dryobates scalaris scalaris_), are found only in regions south of the Rio Grande. The four races found in North America are distributed as follows: The Texas woodpecker (_D. s. symplectus_) is found from southeastern Colorado south and east through east-central Texas, to Coahuila, Tamaulipas, and Nuevo Leon. The cactus woodpecker (_D. s. cactophilus_) ranges from western Texas through New Mexico, Arizona, and southern Utah and Nevada south to northern Durango. The western edge of the range of this race cuts across southeastern California and northeastern Baja California. The San Fernando woodpecker (_D. s. eremicus_) is found in northern Baja California except for the northeastern part. The San Lucas woodpecker (_D. s. lucasanus_) occurs in southern part of Baja California north to about latitude 29° N.

_Egg dates._--California: 7 records, April 11 to May 9. Baja California: 12 records, April 16 to June 2. Texas: 45 records, April 14 to June 22; 23 records, April 20 to May 7, indicating the height of the season.

DRYOBATES SCALARIS LUCASANUS (Xantus)

SAN LUCAS WOODPECKER

HABITS

The ladder-backed woodpecker of the southern half of the peninsula of Baja California, Mexico, has long been recognized as a distinct subspecies under the above name. It inhabits the Lower Austral deserts from Cape San Lucas north to about latitude 29° N. William Brewster (1902) says: “Mr. Frazar considers this woodpecker ‘rather common and generally distributed in the cape region, except on the mountains, where it was not met with.’ He found it most numerous about La Paz, but did not see it anywhere to the northward of that place during his trip along the Gulf coast.”

This is a smaller bird than _Dryobates scalaris eremicus_ from the northern half of Baja California; both upper and lower surfaces are lighter in color, with the white bars on the back broader and with the sides of the breast spotted. Mr. Brewster (1902) writes:

All the characters which have been proposed for this Woodpecker are shown by the large series before me to be subject to much variation, but this, as in the case of _Melanerpes angustifrons_, is confined within limits which do not overlap, if, indeed, they quite reach those of the bird’s nearest allies. The restriction of the black on the outer tail feathers is perhaps its best distinguishing feature, although this is not at all uniform, for many of my specimens have three complete dark bars crossing both webs of the outer tail feathers, while in one a fourth bar is only broken by a small space near the middle of the feather. The width of the dark bars on the back is also variable, although these bars are usually wider than in any of the allied forms. The feet average larger than those of _bairdi_, but they are by no means _always_ larger. A difference which I do not find mentioned in descriptions, but which is shown by my series to be quite as constant as most of the characters that have been proposed, is that the white spots on the top of the head are much larger and more numerous than in _bairdi_, while the red is less vivid and more nearly restricted to the crown and occiput.

Griffing Bancroft (1930) writes of this woodpecker, in central Lower California, near the northern limit of its supposed range:

This little denizen of brush and thick undergrowth requires a heavy stand of low cactuses in which to feed and rest. It occurs from the shores of the Gulf to the mouth of José María Cañon. Though the rarest of the resident Picidae it is still fairly common. Its nesting instincts are quite distinct from other _Dryobates scalaris_. They, similarly situated, would utilize sahuaro, it is true, but they would also be prone to add such substitutes as dry mescal stalks, telephone poles, tree yucca and mesquite and would, more often than not, chose one of these other sites by preference. But _lucasanus_ confines itself to the cardón, at least in the district we were studying, selecting a single-stalked giant cactus and drilling its hole very near the top of the plant. As a result the nest-cavity is rather uniformly twenty feet above ground. The entrance hole is at the top of a cavity typically five inches in diameter by fifteen in depth. No foreign material is brought in for a nest. The eggs lie on the chips that fall in the process of excavating.

The number of eggs in a clutch is two, three, or rarely four. The first two weeks in May find almost all the San Lucas Woodpeckers at the peak of laying. After the middle of the month nests with young may be expected. The parent bird will ordinarily flush, especially if the cardón be tapped, but it is not very nervous about its home. It is too busy with family duties to waste much attention on strangers.

The eggs are similar to those of the other subspecies. Bancroft (1930) gives the average measurements of 23 eggs as 22.9 by 18.1 millimeters. The measurements of 10 other eggs average 21.30 by 16.61 millimeters; the eggs, in this series, showing the four extremes measure =24.40= by 18.70, 23.70 by =18.80=, =19.50= by 16.80, and 21.43 by =15.42= millimeters.

DRYOBATES SCALARIS CACTOPHILUS Oberholser

CACTUS WOODPECKER

HABITS

The ladder-backed woodpeckers are quite widely distributed in the Southwestern United States and in nearly all Mexico and in British Honduras, chiefly in the Lower Austral and Tropical Zones. When Dr. Harry C. Oberholser (1911b) wrote his revision of this group, he split the species _Dryobates scalaris_ into 15 subspecies, 9 of which he described and named as new subspecies. Only two of these subspecies are found within the limits of the United States, and only two in Baja California, giving us four on our Check-List.

The name _Dryobates scalaris bairdi_, which was for a long time used to designate the ladder-backed woodpeckers of the United States, was restricted by Oberholser to a Mexican form. He gave as the characters of _cactophilus_, “much like _Dryobates scalaris eremicus_, but smaller, particularly the tail and bill; lower surface lighter, laterally almost always _streaked_ with black; upper parts lighter--the black bars on back and scapulars narrower; wing-quills with larger spots and broader bars of white; outer long rectrices with exterior webs barred throughout with black; black bars on posterior lower surface narrower.”

Ridgway (1914) compares it with _symplectus_, the Texas bird, as “slightly larger, and with black bars on back, etc., decidedly broader.”

The cactus woodpecker ranges, according to the 1931 A. O. U. Check-List, from “central western Texas through New Mexico and Arizona to extreme northeastern Lower California and southeastern California, north to extreme southern Nevada and southwestern Utah, and south to northern Durango.” It frequents the deserts, or the borders of the deserts, and the lower slopes of the mountains in the Sonoran Zone, a hot, dry region where there are no trees of any size and where this is about the only species of woodpecker found. We never found it in the giant-cactus, or saguaro, region, where it seemed to be replaced by the noisy Gila woodpecker and Mearns’s gilded flicker. W. Leon Dawson (1923) says:

Of course it must not be understood that the Cactus Woodpecker tries to live in the central wastes of the desert; for however much it may forage over the creosote and cholla patches, on occasion, it requires something of more ample girth for a nesting site. Hence its breeding range is confined to the more fruitful upper edges of the Lower Sonoran zone, and to the moister bottoms. In the former situation the dried stalks of the agave and the lesser yucca (_whipplei_), or of the Joshua tree (_Yucca arborescens_), and the Mohave Yucca offer asylum. In the valley of the Colorado, fearing no rivalry from _D. pubescens turati_, the Cactus Woodpecker is able to monopolize the willows which grow so rankly along the lagoons.