Part 15

apparently nest sites are selected indiscriminately, in dead stubs in open cleared ground or burnt barrens, and in the woods, where nests are often in dead-hearted live trees. The birds have a remarkably strong attachment for their nests, as evidenced by re-laying in nest holes from which eggs had been removed, and their disregard of the immediate presence of intruders. The male evidently performs his share of the work of incubation, as well as care of young. New nest holes are apparently dug each year, and these may not be in the immediate vicinity of nests of the previous year. The site selected tends to be low, only one nest having been noted at a height of over ten feet, while one, as noted, was as low as two feet. Entrances to nest holes are strongly beveled at the lower edge, forming a sort of “door-step,” and more or less at sides and even top. While this is true in some cases with the Northern Hairy and some other woodpecker excavations which we have examined, it has not proved so frequent or pronounced. With experience, one can usually identify the nest hole of this species with comparative certainty, by this one feature.

Dr. Harrison F. Lewis watched a pair of these woodpeckers excavating their nesting hole on May 27, 1936, in some second-growth woods, chiefly spruce and fir, in Saguenay County, Quebec; he says in his notes: “The Arctic three-toed woodpeckers had a partly excavated nest cavity at a height of about 14 feet on the northwest side of a dead birch stub in a clearing. The stub was about 20 feet high and 1 foot in diameter and stood about 10 feet from the border of the clearing. The nest cavity was guarded almost continually by one bird of the pair. The bird on guard clung to the lower edge of the opening of this cavity. Nine other woodpecker-made openings, many of them only partly completed, were to be seen in the same stub.

“I watched the three-toed woodpeckers, from partial concealment near at hand, for an hour and 25 minutes. Each one of them would spend a period of 15 to 20 minutes at their nest cavity, then be relieved by the other. The periods spent at the cavity by the male were somewhat longer than those spent there by the female. While the male was at the cavity, he spent much of his time in excavating, with only his tail and the region of his rump projecting from the opening, but at intervals of a few seconds he would withdraw his body and head from the cavity and look about him. When he was excavating, very little noise could be heard. He spent some time in throwing out chips and some time in resting. When the female was at the cavity, she did very little excavating, so little that it seemed to be a mere gesture. On one occasion, after she had been clinging to the edge of the opening for 10 minutes, she drummed repeatedly, but not loudly, on the outside of the stub beside the opening. I wondered if she were signaling to the male to come to relieve her in guarding the cavity. After 5 minutes of such intermittent drumming, she was relieved at the opening by the male.”

Mr. Achilles (1906) describes the nest he found in the Adirondacks as follows:

The hole, which was in a spruce tree, faced north by northeast, and was twenty-seven feet one inch from the ground. The spruce retained all its branches and some twigs, although it had been dead for some time.

The following dimensions of the hole were taken after the young had left their nest. The entrance to the hole was two inches wide and one and five-eighths inches high. From the outside of the hole, straight through over the top of the nest to the back of the hole, the measurement was five and three-fourths inches. The outside shell, including the bark, was one and three-fourths inches thick. The diameter of the nest opening was three and one-fourth inches, while the diameter of the hole on the inside at the bottom of the shaft, was four and five-eighths inches. The depth of the hole was nine and one-eighth inches.

Dr. C. Hart Merriam sent Major Bendire (1895) some notes on two nests that he found in the Adirondacks, as follows:

The water of Seventh Lake, Fulton Chain, had been raised by a dam at the foot of Sixth Lake, flooding a considerable area along the inlet, and the trees killed by the overflow stood in about 6 feet of water. In 1883 the place was first visited by me, May 27. Both species of Three-toed Woodpeckers (_Picoides americanus_ and _arcticus_) were tolerably common, and one new nest of each was found. That of _P. arcticus_ contained one fresh egg. The nest was 10 inches deep, and the opening within 5 feet of the surface of the water. It was in a dead spruce, 10 inches in diameter. * * * The place was next visited, June 2, but the date proved still too early. Several unfinished nests of _P. americanus_ were found, and one completed nest with four fresh eggs of _P. arcticus_. Like the one found on my first visit, it was in a dead spruce and about 5 feet above the water. The nest was 11 inches deep and the orifice 1¾ inches in diameter.

J. H. Fleming (1901) says that the Arctic three-toed woodpecker is “a common resident in Parry Sound, rarer in Muskoka. This Woodpecker has a habit of sometimes nesting in colonies. I saw the nests of such a colony near Sand Lake in 1896; there were six or seven nests, each cut into the trunk of a living cedar, just below the first branch, and usually eight or ten feet from the ground. The cedars were in a dense forest, overlooking a small stream that empties into Sand Lake.”

Macoun (1909) reports, on the authority of Spreadborough, that “a pair nested in a telegraph pole quite near Cache lake station of the Parry Sound railway.” Major Bendire (1895) writes:

On May 10, 1883, while en route from Fort Klamath to Linkville, Oregon, and only a few miles from the latter place, just where the pine timber ended and the sagebrush commenced, I found a male busily at work on a pine stump, only about 2½ feet high and about 18 inches in diameter, standing within a few feet of the road, and close to a charcoal burner’s camp, in quite an open and exposed situation, nearly all the timber in the vicinity having been cut down. The stump was solid, full of pitch, and showed no signs of decay; the entrance hole was about 1½ inches in diameter and 8 inches from the top. The cavity, when first examined, was only about 2 inches deep, and on my return, two days later, it had reached a depth of 4 inches: the female was then at work. To make sure of a full set of eggs, I waited until the 25th. The cavity then was found to be 18 inches deep, and was gradually enlarged toward the bottom. The four eggs it contained had been incubated about four days. The female was on the nest, and uttered a hissing sound as she left it, and might easily have been caught, as she remained in the hole until the stump was struck with a hatchet. The sides of the cavity were quite smooth, and the eggs were partly embedded in a slight layer of pine chips. The locality where this nest was found was near the top of a low divide, not over 4,100 feet in altitude.

Dr. Thomas S. Roberts (1932) calls attention to an interesting feature in the nesting habits of this woodpecker, as observed in two nestings that he saw in Minnesota; he says of the two nests:

The nesting-hole was in a live jack-pine on the edge of a tamarack and spruce swamp, only twenty feet from a traveled road and close by a log house used as a store. The entrance faced south and was twelve feet from the ground, at which point the tree was seven inches in diameter. The outer bark of the tree had been chipped off for a distance of twelve to fifteen inches above and below the hole and half-way around the tree, thus leaving a large, irregular, whitish area. * * *

Another nest, found the same season, was also in a live evergreen tree and the outer bark had been similarly stripped from around the entrance, making a conspicuous, white patch with the dark nesting-hole in the center. Can this be a direction mark for the returning bird among the dark tree trunks around?

As to the height from the ground, P. B. Philipp writes to me that of 26 nesting holes examined by him in New Brunswick two were 15 feet, two 12 feet, three 10 feet, one 8 feet, two 6 feet, two 5 feet, four 4 feet, six 3 feet, and four only 2 feet above ground.

Although the Arctic three-toed woodpecker usually nests at no great height above ground, there are a few exceptions to this rule, mainly in the western portion of its range. Grinnell and Storer (1924) record a nest seen in the Yosemite region that was 50 feet above ground in a dead lodgepole pine. Harry S. Swarth (1924) found, in the Skeena River region, the highest nest of which I can find any record; he says: “A nest of the Arctic three-toed woodpecker was found in Kispiox Valley. It was placed in a dead and charred Engelmann spruce, in a strip of spruce woods bordering a muskeg otherwise surrounded by poplar forest. The nest hole was eighty feet from the ground. It was two and one-half inches in diameter and one foot deep, drilled through an outer sheath of sound, hard wood, and downward through soft, rotten ‘punk.’”

_Eggs._--The number of eggs laid by the Arctic three-toed woodpecker varies from two to six, four being the commonest number. These vary from ovate to elliptical-ovate, the former shape prevailing. The shell is dull or only slightly glossy and is pure white. The measurements of 39 eggs average 21.32 by 18.94 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure =25.9= by 18.7, 25.1 by =20.2=, and =22.35= by =17.53= millimeters.

_Young._--The period of incubation is about 14 days; both sexes assist in this and in the care of the young. Only one brood is raised in a season, but if the eggs are taken, a second set will be laid, often in the same nest.

Mr. Achilles (1906) watched a nest containing young for 24 consecutive hours, he and a companion taking turns at the vigil and sleeping alternately within ten yards of the tree; he writes:

The parents, when feeding their young, usually alighted within a space of three feet below the hole, and never directly at its entrance. They would pause here for a moment as though fearing they were observed by someone. Then they would hop up to the hole and look in, anywhere from two up to six times, as if accustoming their eyes to the darkness. Once in a while grubs could be seen in their bills, but, from the actions of the birds when feeding their young, they appeared to be regurgitating. During twenty-four hours the female fed the young thirty times, and the male twenty-nine times.

As it grew dusk, the young gradually grew quieter, and their little “peep-peep-peep” greatly resembled those of chicks when crawling beneath their mother’s wings. From two o’clock in the afternoon till seven o’clock that evening, two minutes was the longest period during which the young did not utter a single “peep.” From seven P. M. until two minutes after four the next morning, the young birds ceased this continuous chattering. The mother was the last to feed them at night, the time being seventeen minutes after seven; but the male was up first in the morning. At four-fifteen in the morning, the young uttered a few sleepy “peeps,” and the male alighted three feet below the hole at four-sixteen. The young birds heard him alight and immediately commenced to chatter. The male hopped up to the hole, looked in twice, and then fed them. The young birds’ bills were seen, indicating that they were very hungry, and were hanging on to the inner wall of the nest near the entrance. Soon after this their hunger was appeased, their bills were seen no more, and the parents had to go almost into the hole to feed them.

_Plumages._--The nestlings are naked and blind at first, but the juvenal plumage is acquired before the young leave the nest. In the juvenal plumage, the young male is similar to the adult male, but the yellow crown patch is smaller and not so sharply defined; the upper parts are duller, browner black, lacking the glossy, bluish edgings; the breast is tinged with dull buffy white; and the flanks are more heavily and less distinctly barred or spotted with dull black. The young female is similar to the young male, but there is no distinct yellow patch on the crown, only scattering yellow feathers in varying amounts, often few or none at all. This plumage is worn through the summer and early fall; the first winter plumage, which is practically indistinguishable from that of the adult, is apparently not fully acquired until November or December. Adults have one complete annual molt, beginning in August.

_Food._--More than three-quarters of the food of both species of three-toed woodpeckers consists of the larvae of wood-boring beetles, mainly Cerambycidae and Buprestidae. Referring to the former, Prof. F. E. L. Beal (1911) says:

Stomachs containing 15 to 20 of these grubs are very common, and one held 34. Probably the stomach is filled several times each day, and it does not seem unreasonable to assume that a bird will eat 50 of these insects every 24 hours for 6 months and at least 25 daily for the other half of the year. At this rate one bird will annually destroy 13,675 of these destructive grubs. * * *

Probably there are not many other agencies more destructive to timber than this family of beetles. Nor is timber safe even after it has been cut. Logs lying in the mill yard or forest may be ruined in a single season if these creatures are not prevented from depositing their eggs. * * * A very efficient check upon the undue increase of these insects is found in the woodpeckers, especially the two species of Picoides.

Weevils and other beetles and some ants are eaten, as well as a few other insects and spiders. Vegetable food, wild fruits, mast, and cambium amount to less than 12 percent of the food.

While with us, in southern New England, in winter, this woodpecker shows a decided preference for dead white pine trees (_Pinus strobus_), especially those that have been killed by fire or have been dead long enough for the bark to have partially peeled off. An isolated tree or a group of trees of this type may be visited day after day by one of these woodpeckers, during its stay, with such regularity that many an observer, who has never seen an Arctic three-toed woodpecker, may feel reasonably sure of finding one in such a place, if it has been previously seen there. Its persistent work on such a tree is well described by E. H. Forbush (1927) as follows:

This species very often begins to work on the trunk near the foot of a tree; it sounds the bark with direct blows, and then, turning its head from side to side, strikes its beak slantingly into and under the bark, and flakes it off. It often works long on the same tree and barks the whole trunk in time, only occasionally working on the branches. Thus it exposes channels of bark-beetles and the holes made by borers. When the bird remains motionless, it is well concealed against the blackened bark of the burnt trees. It seems deliberate in its movements and appears to do its work thoroughly, as it often remains five to ten minutes on the same spot and then shifts only a little distance. In early autumn, while the grubs are still at work on the tree, it lays its head against the tree, at times, turning it first to one side and then to the other as if listening.

Grinnell, Dixon, and Linsdale (1930) write of the feeding habits of this woodpecker in the Lassen Peak region:

One of these woodpeckers was watched as it moved slowly up a tree trunk. It stopped to knock off a piece of bark with a sidewise (glancing) blow of the heavy bill. This was repeated several times. Then the bird began to drill in earnest and the tapping could be heard by a person more than thirty meters distant. The blows were delivered rapidly, about two per second. Between three and five minutes were required to bore through the bark, in this instance twenty millimeters thick. Then after a few moments of probing the bill was withdrawn and was seen to hold a white larva which was quickly eaten. * * *

On one tree thirty-five centimeters in diameter an area of bark thirty by sixty centimeters was punctured completely through by twenty-two holes each leading to the tunnel of a wood-borer. * * * The holes were twelve by twelve millimeters across by twenty deep. It appeared to the observer * * * that many of the still living trees in that locality had been saved from complete destruction by the insects, by the activity of this woodpecker.

Manly Hardy wrote to Major Bendire (1895) that, in Maine, “it seems to feed entirely on such wood worms as attack spruce, pine, and other soft-wood timber that has been fire-killed. Specimens are so abundant in such places that I once shot the heads off of six in a few minutes when short of material for a stew.”

Some dead pine trees that had been regularly frequented by these woodpeckers, on the Kennard estate, were cut down; and the birds, seeing their favorite trees gone, continued to search for food on the wood piles made from these trees.

_Behavior._--Most observers agree that the Arctic three-toed woodpecker is very tame and unsuspicious, working very quietly on a tree trunk for long periods, without moving about much, and allowing a close approach; perhaps, as it lives most of its life in remote northern forests, where men are scarce, it has not learned to fear human beings. Manly Hardy considered it the tamest and stupidest of the woodpeckers found in Maine. Major Bendire (1895) says:

“Like the hairy woodpecker, they are persistent drummers, rattling away for minutes at a time on some dead limb, and are especially active during the mating season, in April. I have located more than one specimen by traveling in the direction of the sound when it was fully half a mile away. * * * Its flight is swift, greatly undulating, and is often protracted for considerable distances.”

Dr. Lewis says in his notes: “When one bird relieved the other in guarding the cavity, the bird taking over guard duty flew low toward the stub and swerved sharply upward, with widespread tail, to alight near the opening.”

_Voice._--Dr. Lewis (MS.) records the common cry of this woodpecker as “_tchuk_, often shortened and sharpened to _kip_.” He also says: “A male mounted a stub, about 25 feet from me, and there, in plain view, scolded me vigorously with a sharp note like _kuk_, repeated about once a second for some minutes. Each time the note was uttered there was a flash of whitish at the bird’s eye, as though it winked with each utterance. It was also heard to utter a rattling note, apparently another kind of scolding cry.”

Francis H. Allen tells me that the “call-note resembles the _cluck_ used in New England to start a horse; it has a ‘woodeny’ quality.” Ralph Hoffmann (1927) says that “in the breeding season the Arctic Three-toed Woodpecker makes a very loud rolling sound by drumming on dry limbs and when concerned about the nest a shrill _kick-er-uck-a-kick_. The ordinary call is _tschick_ or _tschuck_.” A note of greeting, possibly part of a love-making performance, is thus described by Mr. Achilles (1906): “Several times when the female was getting grubs in the dead spruce near the hole, the male would fly from some distant tree and alight near her. She would see him coming and, just about as he was about to alight, would spread her wings and utter a ‘whe-e-e-e-ee.’ This call, which was its loudest at its middle point, rose and then fell to the same pitch at which it was begun.”

Rev. C. W. G. Eifrig (1906) heard a queer sound that “was as if produced by pulling out the end of a clock spring and suddenly releasing it, producing a wiry, humming sound. The author of it proved to be a male of this woodpecker. In the course of the half hour that I watched him he showed himself master of quite a repertoire of notes and would-be songs. When flying he would say: _chut chut_ and then rattle like a Kingfisher. When hammering on a tree and preening himself, he would intersperse those actions by chuckling: _duck, duck, duck_.”

_Field marks._--All the three-toed woodpeckers can be easily recognized by the yellow patch on the crown of the adult male and by more or less yellow in the crowns or young birds of both sexes. The crown patch of the adult male _arcticus_ is larger and extends farther forward than that of _tridactylus_. But the best field mark for the Arctic three-toed woodpecker is the solid-black back, without any white markings, and in the female the solid-black crown as well; the dorsal aspect, when the bird is clinging to a tree trunk, often appears wholly black. The white stripe on the side of the head, below the eye, is much wider in _arcticus_ than in _tridactylus_, and the latter has the back transversely banded with white.

_Enemies._--Mr. Achilles (1906) relates the following:

In the course of the morning, two red-breasted nuthatches tormented the woodpeckers for fifteen minutes. * * * They hovered around the hole with drooping wings, holding their tails up like wrens. One of them finally ventured into the hole so far that just his tail was protruding. They would fly away when the parents approached the hole, but would return as soon as the nest was unprotected. After some time the male woodpecker went into the hole, evidently intending to peck them in case they should look into it. During the three minutes he remained in the hole, he managed to keep from looking out for one straight minute. Nevertheless, he was greatly agitated, and would look out every few seconds to see if the nuthatches were approaching,--his crown-patch showing brightly. At last the male nuthatch came to the edge of the hole, whereat the woodpecker made an unsuccessful attempt to peck his opponent, afterward flying out with a rush, and chasing the nuthatch for some distance on the wing.

Soon after that four Canada jays approached, and one of them ventured near the nest hole, but the woodpecker and a hermit thrush succeeded in driving him and his companions away, and they did not return.

Joseph Dixon (1927) tells of an attempt by a black bear to rob a nest of young Arctic three-toed woodpeckers: