Part 20

Dr. Grinnell (1914) noted it, as a winter visitant, among the willows and mesquites in the lower Colorado Valley. And M. French Gilman (1915), referring to the Arizona lowlands, says: “The red-naped sapsucker (_Sphyrapicus varius nuchalis_) is a winter visitant along the Gila River, and while not to be called abundant, is frequently noticed. I have seen individuals from October 6 to as late as April 17, and in all the months between these two dates. Once I saw three in one mesquite tree. Signs of their work are frequently present on cottonwood and willow trees and occasionally on an Arizona ash. If there are any almond trees in the country they are sure to be attacked, as they are favorites with these birds. Only once or twice have I seen mesquite trees attacked.”

SPHYRAPICUS VARIUS DAGGETTI Grinnell

SOUTHERN RED-BREASTED SAPSUCKER

HABITS

The above name was applied to this sapsucker by Dr. Joseph Grinnell (1901) and was characterized by him as smaller and paler than the northern race and with a maximum extent of white markings. It is evidently a well-marked race. But whether the red-breasted sapsucker should be considered a subspecies of the yellow-bellied sapsucker seems to me to be a decidedly open question, on which authorities seem to have differed, or to have changed their minds. In support of his views, Dr. Grinnell (1901) says: “I have examined a number of skins of the _nuchalis_ type, and others approaching _ruber_ in almost every degree, and I am certain that there is a continuous intergradation geographically between the eastern _S. varius_ and _ruber_ of the Pacific Coast. The intermediates do not appear to be the result of ‘hybridization’ and the case does not seem to be at all parallel to that of _Colaptes auratus_ and _C. cafer_. Therefore I see no reason why the Red-breasted Sapsucker is of more than subspecific rank.”

It is interesting to note that Ridgway used the name _Sphyrapicus varius ruber_ in 1872 and again in 1874 (Ridgway, 1914, in synonymy), but 40 years later (1914) he gave the red-breasted sapsucker full specific rank, apparently having changed his mind. And, in the same work, in a footnote under the red-naped sapsucker, referring to the intergrades mentioned by Dr. Grinnell, he says: “But they may be (and I believe are) hybrids; certainly there is no more reason for not considering them as such than in the case of _Colaptes_.”

Certainly the red-breasted sapsucker and the yellow-bellied sapsucker are as much unlike in appearance as the two flickers; and the hybrid flickers certainly show “every degree” of intergradation. In the large series of sapsuckers that I have examined, containing 87 typical _ruber_ and 86 typical _nuchalis_, I was able to find only 8 specimens that could, by any stretch of the imagination, be considered as intermediates; I believe that these intergrading sapsuckers will prove to be relatively less common than are the hybrids between the two flickers.

It is interesting, too, to note that the first three editions of the A. O. U. Check-List, 1886, 1895, and 1910, all gave the red-breasted sapsucker full specific rank, in spite of the fact that Ridgway had called it a subspecies of the yellow-bellied in 1872, and Grinnell had done the same in 1901. But the fourth edition, 1931, adopts the subspecies theory, in spite of Ridgway’s latest decision.

The southern race of the red-breasted sapsucker breeds in the Canadian and Transition Zones in the mountains of California, from the Trinity and Warner Mountains southward to the San Jacinto Mountains. Grinnell and Storer (1924) say that it “is found in the main forest belt during the spring, summer, and fall, but regularly performs an altitudinal migration which carries it down into the tree growths of the western foothills and valleys for the winter months.”

_Nesting._--Very little seems to have been published on the nesting habits of this sapsucker, which probably do not differ materially from those of its northern relative, about which more seems to be known. Wright M. Pierce (1916) located one of its nests in the San Bernardino Mountains, on June 26, of which he says: “The cavity was in the dead top of a large live silver fir about forty-five feet up. The cavity had a small opening and was only 5 or 6 inches deep; diameter, inside, 1½ or 2 inches. The nest held two large young and one smaller dead one. It was hard to see how more than one bird could survive in such a small space, so it was not surprising that the probably weaker bird had apparently been suffocated.”

_Eggs._--The red-breasted sapsucker lays usually four or five eggs, sometimes as many as six. Like all woodpeckers’ eggs, they are pure white, usually with very little or no gloss, and they vary from ovate to rounded-ovate. The measurements of 13 eggs average 23.79 by 17.25 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure =24.6= by 17.0, 23.81 by =17.86=, =22.5= by 17.5, and 24.5 by =16.6= millimeters.

_Young._--Incubation is said to last about 14 days; this duty and the care of the young is shared by both parents. Mrs. Irene G. Wheelock (1904) says of a nest that she watched: “Incubation began May 30, and lasted fifteen days. The young were fed by regurgitation for the first two weeks. * * *

“The young sapsuckers left the nest on the seventh of July, and clung to the nest tree for three days. Here they were initiated by both parents into the mysteries of sap-sucking. A hole having been bored in front of each, with grotesque earnestness the mother watched the attempt to drink the sweet syrup. During this time both insects and berries were brought to them by the adults, in one hour one youngster devouring twelve insects that looked like dragonflies.”

Mrs. Florence M. Bailey (1902) writes:

The last week in July at Donner Lake we found a family of dull colored young going about with their mother, a handsome old bird with dark red head and breast. They flew around in a poplar grove for a while, and then gathered in a clump of willows, where four young clung to the branches and devoted themselves to eating sap. The old bird flew about among them and seemingly cut and scraped off the bark for them, at the same time apparently trying to teach them to eat the sap for themselves; for though she would feed them at other times she refused to feed them there, and apparently watched carefully to see if they knew enough to drink the sap. When the meal was finally over and the birds had flown, we examined the branch and found that lengthwise strips of bark had been cut off, leaving narrow strips like fiddle-strings between. At the freshly cut places the sap exuded as sweet as sugar, ready for the birds to suck.

_Plumages._--Like other young sapsuckers, the young of this species are hatched naked, but the juvenal plumage is acquired before they leave the nest. In the juvenal plumage, in which the sexes are alike, the wings and tail are essentially as in the adult; the head and neck, except for the white stripe below the eye, are dark grayish sooty, though the forehead and crown are usually more or less tinged with dull red; the sides and flanks are more or less barred with dull gray and white; and the abdomen is dull yellowish white.

By the last of July, or first of August, the molt into the first winter plumage begins, with an increasing amount of red coming in on the crown, throat, and breast; at the same time the yellow of the abdomen becomes brighter. This molt continues through fall and is often not complete until November or later. The young bird is now much like the adult. In fall birds, both adult and young, the red of the head and breast, is much duller than in spring, “Brazil red” to “dragon’s blood red” in the fall, and “scarlet red” or bright “scarlet” in the late winter and spring; this is due, of course, to the wearing away of the tips of the feathers; in early summer, just before molting, the red is decidedly brilliant.

Adults have a complete annual molt, beginning sometimes in July and lasting through August or later.

_Food._--The food of the red-breasted sapsucker is much like that of its close relatives in the _varius_ group. M. P. Skinner writes to me: “I have found red-breasted sapsuckers drilling on cottonwoods, willows, yellow pines, and lodgepole pines; but all the actual feeding I have seen was on willows. Mr. Michael tells me that these birds work largely on the apple trees that have been planted in various parts of the Yosemite Valley. When a sapsucker is at its wells, it takes a sip now and then, but considerable time is used in watchful guarding, or in driving away intruders or would-be robbers. In the case of such wells as I found on willow stems, I could see no established regularity in arrangement. They looked as if the bark had been irregularly scaled off. In fact, such work may be necessary to secure the inner bark; yet the birds actually took sap at such wells. One had a dozen willow stems on which it drilled and sipped in succession; each one was only a few inches from the next; and the bark of each, both above and below the wells, was worn smooth. This bird went from well to well in regular order, then back to the first well to begin again. Although sap formed the bulk of their food in August, I have seen them also searching the bark for insects during that same month.”

McAtee (1911) lists the following trees that are attacked by the red-breasted sapsucker: Cottonwoods, willows, walnuts, birches, oaks, barberry, sycamore, mountain-ash, pears, apples, peaches, plums, apricot, orange, pepper, and blue gum (_Eucalyptus_). Emanuel Fritz (1937) has, on several occasions, found this sapsucker attacking redwood trees. “In each instance the individual tree was ‘peppered’ with holes in horizontal rows, from the base to the top. In virgin timber, it is only an occasional tree that is attacked, and one searches in vain for another victim in the general vicinity. * * *

“During the present year, the writer came upon his first example of sapsucker work on so-called second-growth redwood. * * * The sapsuckers attacked every tree in two groups, or families, of sprouts.”

W. L. Dawson (1923) writes:

The red-breasted sapsucker does puncture trees and drink sap both in summer and winter. In summer it attacks in this fashion not only pine, fir, aspen, alder, cottonwood and willow trees, but such orchard trees as apple, pear, prune and the like, as may lie within Transition areas. In winter at lower levels it gives attention to evergreen trees, white birch, mountain ash, peach, plum, apricot, English walnut, elder, and pepper trees. * * * Instead of gleaning at random, as we might expect, the Sapsucker makes careful selection, like a prudent forester, of a single tree, and confines his attentions henceforth, even though it be through succeeding seasons, to that one tree. Starting well toward the top of an evergreen, or well up on the major branches of an orchard tree, the bird works successively downward in perpendicular rows, whose borings are sometimes confluent. In this way the bird secures an ever-fresh flow of sap, from below. If carried on too extensively, or persisted in for successive seasons, these operations will sometimes cause a tree to bleed fatally, or at least to fall easy victim to insect pests. I have myself seen limbs of mountain ash trees, pear trees, and English walnut, done to death in this fashion. Yet it is only fair to say that but one or two trees in an orchard may be attacked, and there is scarcely more danger of the trouble spreading than there would be from successive strokes of lightning. * * *

For the rest, _Sphyrapicus ruber_ is a large consumer of ants, and does some good in the destruction of leaf-eating beetles. Berries of the pepper trees (_Schinus molle_) are eaten to some extent, in winter, as are also, regrettably, seeds of the poison oak.

W. Otto Emerson (1893) says: “One I watched every morning from my tent fly to the top of a tall burnt tree and rap its roll-call as a kind of warning may be to the flying insects. It would then sail out like a flycatcher, catch an insect, and return to the burnt tree-top. Its movements were very graceful and regular. As it dipped or circled around for this or that insect the sunlight catching on the red breast lit it up like a patch of flame.” He says elsewhere (1899): “One I found in a willow tree trying to get the best of a yellow jacket’s nest, dodging back and forth either to get a mouthful of their stored sweets or the jackets themselves.”

Junius Henderson (1927) gives, in his table, the percentages of animal and vegetable food, exclusive of sap, taken by this sapsucker. Based on a study of 34 stomachs the total animal food made up 69 percent and the total vegetable food 31 percent of the whole; 42 percent consisted of ants and 12 percent of fruits, mostly wild; insects accounted for 11 percent and seeds for 5 percent.

_Behavior._--Grinnell and Storer (1924) write:

The Sierra red-breasted sapsucker is in our experience well-nigh voiceless and its work is done in such a quiet manner that it does not ordinarily attract attention, as do the woodpeckers that are wont to pound noisily. The most vigorous drilling of the sapsucker will scarcely be heard more than a hundred feet away. The bird moves its head through a short arc, an inch or two at the most, giving but slight momentum to the blows. The chips cut away are correspondingly small, mere sawdust as compared with the splinters or slabs chiseled off by other woodpeckers. The strokes are delivered in intermittent series, four or five within a second, then a pause of equal duration, then another short series, and so on. From time to time a longer pause ensues, when the sapsucker withdraws its bill and gazes monocularly at the work.

Mr. Skinner says, in his notes: “Although methodical, these birds seem quite nervous, moving from stem to stem. Generally they perch lengthwise of a limb when working or feeding but are apt to perch crosswise when hopping from limb to limb. After a sapsucker has its wells established, it finds it necessary to stay near to guard them from other birds attracted by the sap, or by the insects drawn there. Preening is often done while guarding the wells. The hairy woodpeckers chase these sapsuckers from tree to tree. The Audubon and lutescent warblers literally swarm to the sap-wells in the willows whenever the sapsuckers cease to guard them, but I do not know that there is active antagonism between the species. On one occasion, I saw a young sapsucker chase off a chipmunk that came too near.”

_Voice._--Ralph Hoffmann (1927) says that “the ordinary cry is a nasal squeal, _chée-arr_, somewhat suggesting the note of a red-bellied hawk.” But it is apparently not a noisy bird, as Grinnell and Storer (1924) say that it is “well-nigh voiceless”.

_Field marks._--The red head and breast of the adult are unmistakable and very conspicuous. The young bird might be mistaken for the young of the red-naped sapsucker, as they are much alike, but the head of the red-breasted sapsucker is darker and often shows dull red. The broad, white band in the wing is conspicuous while the bird is perched or when flying; this is common to both adults and young, but the red-naped sapsucker has a very similar white band.

_Winter._--Mr. Dawson (1923) writes: “Sapsuckers are more extensively migratory than any other woodpeckers, save _Colaptes_, but _ruber’s_ migrations are chiefly altitudinal. Retirement from the untenable heights is quite irregular, and dependent upon weather conditions. The winter distribution, also, appears somewhat irregular and haphazard. The bird is very quiet and rather stolid in winter, as becomes a bird of high feather. It is, however, quite as likely to be seen in a city park or on a shaded avenue as in a foothill forest.”

SPHYRAPICUS VARIUS RUBER (Gmelin)

NORTHERN RED-BREASTED SAPSUCKER

HABITS

The northern race of the red-breasted sapsucker breeds from Alaska southward to western Oregon, chiefly in the Canadian Zone. Ridgway (1914) says that it is “similar to” the southern race, “but slightly larger and with coloration darker and brighter; the red of the head, neck, and chest averaging brighter, and whitish spots on back usually smaller (sometimes obsolete).”

Bendire (1895) says of its haunts:

Throughout its range I think this species breeds frequently at lower altitudes than _Sphyrapicus varius nuchalis_. Fort Klamath, however, although but 4,200 feet above sea level, has a very cool summer climate, frosts occurring in almost every month in the year. The surrounding country is very beautiful at that time. Heavy, open forests of stately pines and firs, among these the graceful and beautiful sugar pine, are found on the mountain sides and reaching well down into the green, park-like valleys. Interspersed here and there are aspen groves of various extent, their silvery trunks and light-green foliage blending artistically with the somber green of the pines. These aspen groves are the summer home of the Red-breasted Sapsucker.

_Spring._--In the vicinity of Fort Klamath, Oreg., Bendire (1895) found this sapsucker to be “an abundant summer resident” and says:

They are among the earliest birds to arrive in the spring. The first bird of this species shot by me, in the spring of 1883, was obtained on March 13, and I have seen a few as late as November. On one of my collecting trips, the morning of April 4, 1883, while riding through a patch of pine timber, near Wood River, the principal stream running through the center of Klamath Valley, I noticed a flock of these birds, at least twenty in number. They were very noisy, apparently glad to get back to their summer homes, and seemed to have an excellent time generally, flying from tree to tree and calling to each other.

As I wanted a couple of specimens, I was compelled to disturb their jollification; those procured were both males, and presumably the entire flock belonged to this sex. By April 20 they had become very common, and some pairs at least were mated and had already selected their future domiciles, in every case a good-sized live aspen tree. The males might at that time be heard in almost all directions drumming on some dry limb, generally the dead top of one of these trees. They scarcely seemed to do anything else.

Nesting.--He says of the nesting habits in the Klamath Valley:

As far as my own observations go, healthy, smooth-barked aspens are always selected as suitable nesting sites by these birds. The trees used vary from 12 to 18 inches in diameter near the ground, and taper very gradually. The cavity is usually excavated below the first limb of the tree, say from 15 to 25 feet from the ground. The entrance hole seems to be ridiculously small for the size of the bird--perfectly circular, from 1¼ to 1½ inches in diameter only--so small, indeed, that it seems as if it took considerable effort for the bird to squeeze himself in and wriggle out of the hole.

The gourd-shaped excavation varies in depth from 6 to 10 inches, and it is from 3 inches near the top to 4 or 5 inches wide at the bottom. The finer chips are allowed to remain in the bottom, forming the nest proper, on which the eggs are deposited. Frequently they are more than half covered by these chips. The interior of the entire excavation is most carefully smoothed off, which must consume considerable time, considering the tough, stringy, and elastic nature of the wood when filled with sap, making it even more difficult to work when partly decayed, which seems to be the case with nearly all the aspens of any size. Probably eight or ten days are consumed in excavating a satisfactory nesting site. All the larger and coarser chips are dropped out of the hole and scattered about the base of the tree.

Johnson A. Neff (1928) says: “The nests of these birds are placed in whatever trees are abundant in their vicinity. In Klamath County, in the foothills and in the lower valleys, alders, cottonwoods and aspens were utilized; in the higher altitudes, firs were the common site, with the alder and willow along the small streams. In the Willamette Valley the firs, cottonwoods, willows, alders, and others, are used indiscriminately.”

Near Blaine, Wash., Mr. Dawson (Dawson and Bowles, 1909) found an almost inaccessible nest of this sapsucker 50 feet from the ground in a big fir stub, “sixteen feet around at the base, above the root bulge, and perfectly desolate of limbs.” He managed to reach the nest with the help of a rope and cleats nailed on the barkless trunk. He says:

“By the time I had a hole large enough to thrust in the hand, the eggs were quite buried in chips and rotten wood. But when they were uncovered, they were seen to lie, seven of them, in two regular lines, four in the front rank with sides touching evenly, and three in the rear with points dove-tailed between.”

Harry S. Swarth (1924) also found some lofty nests in the Skeena River region of northern British Columbia; he writes: “During May and June a number of nests were found, mostly through seeing the old birds carrying food to the young. One was drilled in a live poplar, the tree a straight column with no branching limb save at the very top, the nest some seventy feet from the ground. Another was in a dead birch, sixty feet up. Many others were noted, all in birch or poplar, mostly dead trees, and no nest was less than fifty feet above the ground. One male bird collected had the abdomen bare of feathers. It obviously had been incubating eggs.”

_Eggs._--The red-breasted sapsucker lays four to seven eggs, usually five or six. Bendire (1895) describes them, as follows: “The eggs, when fresh and before blowing, like those of all Woodpeckers, show the yolk through the translucent shell, giving them a beautiful pinkish appearance, as well as a series of straight lines or streaks, of a more pronounced white than the rest of the shell, running toward and converging at the smaller axis of the egg. After blowing, the pink tint will be found to have disappeared and the egg changed to a pure, delicate white, the shell showing a moderate amount of luster. There is considerable variation in their shape, running as they do through all the different ovates to an elongated ovate.”

The measurements of 54 eggs average 23.61 by 17.51 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure =25.40= by 17.78, 24.13 by =18.54=, =21.84= by 17.27, and 23.11 by =16.26= millimeters.