Part 30

According to some other observers, its behavior toward other species is not always as friendly as it might be. M. P. Skinner writes to me: “Once I found a California woodpecker and a California jay peaceably perched in the top of a dead cottonwood. But at other times I have noted much fighting between these woodpeckers and the jays, with the woodpeckers apparently able to hold their own. On May 1, 1933, at old Fort Tejon, I saw a California woodpecker make a vicious dive at a plain titmouse that was clinging to the bark on the trunk of an oak. On May 31 I saw one make a dive at an Arkansas kingbird on a fence and drive it away. In May 1933 I found a pair of house finches that had attempted to nest in a cavity high up in a dead stub of a black oak. When I appeared, I found a California woodpecker throwing out the straws and other nest material. The two finches were only a foot or two distant, but they made no attempt to save their home, although it is probable that they were scolding. Old acorn stores in the same stub indicated that some woodpecker had an earlier claim to that stub than the finches had.”

Howard W. Wright (1908) says:

January 18, while collecting at Newhall, California, I wounded a Lewis woodpecker. The bird was able to fly to another tree, and I noticed that some California woodpeckers in a nearby tree became very much excited. As the Lewis woodpecker lit on the tree trunk four California woodpeckers attacked him evidently with the intent of driving him off. The Lewis started for another tree but a California flew at him from in front, and they both fell in the struggle that ensued. At this the other California woodpeckers, which were joined by a few more, set up a violent chattering and when I ran up, to my amazement I found that the Lewis had hold of the California by the skull, two of its claws entering the latter’s eyes and the other two entering the skull in front and behind. The Lewis woodpecker was dead and the California so nearly so that it died while I was removing the former’s claws.

_Voice._--Mr. Skinner says in his notes: “In May, at least, these woodpeckers are sometimes noisy while calling to their mates. One gave a ringing _cleep-ep_, _cleep-ep_ call on May 25, 1933. It was somewhat similar to a flicker’s call.” Ralph Hoffmann (1927) says: “When a bird lights on a pole or limb already occupied, there is always mild excitement, fluttering of the wings, bowing and scraping, and always a lively interchange of harsh calls, like the syllables _chák-a_, _chák-a_, _chák-a chak_, dying off at the end.” W. L. Dawson (1923) gives the following interpretations of its notes: “A jeering, raucous voice, * * * _Jacob_, _Jacob_, _Jacob_; * * * _Kerack Kerack_;” and “_chaar chaar tchurrup_.”

_Field marks._--The California woodpecker is conspicuously marked and need not be mistaken for anything else from any angle. When flying away, it looks like a black bird with an extensive white rump and with a white patch in each wing; when flying over or when perched facing the observer, the white abdomen and the broad black band across the chest are distinctive; if near enough, the color pattern of the head is easily seen.

[1] Prof. Ritter’s extensive book (1938) on the California woodpecker appeared while this bulletin was in press.--EDITOR.

BALANOSPHYRA FORMICIVORA ANGUSTIFRONS (Baird)

NARROW-FRONTED WOODPECKER

HABITS

The Cape region of southern Baja California is the home of this subspecies. It is a well-marked race, which Ridgway (1914) describes as “similar to _B. f. formicivora_, but wing averaging much shorter, bill relatively larger, white frontal band decidedly narrower, lower throat usually much more strongly yellow, white area on proximal portion of remiges smaller, and the adult female with black area on crown much narrower.”

William Brewster (1902) says of its haunts:

This woodpecker, which seems to be confined to the Cape Region proper, is exceedingly abundant throughout the pine forests on the higher mountains south of La Paz and common in many places in the oaks at the bases of the mountains and among their foot-hills, ranging downward, according to Mr. Belding, to an elevation of about 700 feet. Mr. Frazar found it most numerous on the Sierra de la Laguna, during the last week of April and the first week of May. After that its numbers decreased perceptibly. It began breeding on this mountain the first week in June, but the breeding season was not at its height until the middle of that month. * * *

Only one specimen was seen at Triunfo during the last two weeks of June, but the bird was common and presumably breeding at Pierce’s Ranch in July. At the latter place it fairly swarmed in December, the resident colony being probably augmented by large numbers of winter visitors from La Laguna, where Mr. Frazar found only a few birds lingering in late November and early December. Along the road between San José del Cabo and Miraflores it was seen in considerable numbers on November 15, and three were observed in some evergreen oaks at Santiago on November 23.

_Nesting._--There is a set of four eggs in the Thayer collection, apparently the same set referred to by Mr. Brewster, collected by M. Abbott Frazar in the Sierra de la Laguna, on June 3, 1887; the nest is described as 10 feet up in a dead pine stump; the entrance measured 1¾ inches in diameter, and the cavity was 18 inches deep. The measurements of these 4 eggs are =24.13= by 19.05, 22.61 by =19.56=, =22.61= by 19.30, and 23.88 by =18.80= millimeters.

The food and general habits of this woodpecker do not seem to differ materially from those of the species elsewhere. It has similar acorn-storing habits, for Mr. Frazar found “many dead pines literally stuffed full of acorns.”

BALANOSPHYRA FORMICIVORA ACULEATA (Mearns)

MEARNS’S WOODPECKER

PLATE 28

HABITS

Along our southwestern border, from Arizona, New Mexico, and western Texas southward over northwestern Mexico to Durango, we find this race of ant-eating woodpecker. It was separated, named, and described by Dr. Edgar A. Mearns (1890a) as follows: “General size and coloring intermediate between _M. formicivorus_ and M. _formicivorus bairdi_; throat less yellow than in either of them; bill shorter, more slender, and less arcuate than in either of the other forms of M. formicivorus; white striping of chest more than in the Pacific coast form, less than in _formicivorus_.”

He says of its haunts (1890b): “A very common resident through the pine belt, breeding plentifully. I have found it as high as the spruce forests, but never in them. It is essentially a bird of the pines, only occasionally descending to the cottonwoods of the low valleys. The oaks which are scattered through the lower pine zone supply a large share of its food.”

Henry W. Henshaw (1875) writes: “This woodpecker was first observed when we neared Camp Apache, and, so far as my own observations go, its range in Arizona is coincident with that of the oaks, the acorns of which appear to constitute a very important item in its bill of fare. We noticed it to the southward in every locality where oaks were found in sufficiently large groves to afford it at once a place of shelter and an inexhaustible source whence to draw food.”

Harry S. Swarth (1904), writing of the Huachuca Mountains, Ariz., says: “A most abundant summer resident in the lower parts of the mountains; a few winter here but they are scarce during the cold weather. I saw but two or three during February and the early part of March, about the middle of March they began to arrive in numbers, and by April 1 were most abundant. Primarily a bird of the oak woods they seldom venture into the higher parts of the mountains, breeding almost entirely below 6,000 feet.”

_Courtship._--We found this woodpecker quite common on the steep slopes of the Huachuca Mountains in May 1922, especially in the vicinity of Ramsay Canyon, between 5,000 and 6,000 feet elevation. They were usually seen in the open groves of tall pines mixed with oaks. A tall dead pine seemed to be one of their favorite resorts for their courtship displays, which were both showy and noisy. They reminded me of flickers as they dodged about the branches, chasing each other and displaying their conspicuous markings.

_Nesting._--I have the records of four sets of eggs, all taken in the Huachuca Mountains but in a variety of nesting sites. There are two sets in the Thayer collection; one, containing six eggs, was taken on May 10, 1897, from a hole 8 inches deep in the dead limb of a sycamore, 30 feet from the ground; the other set of five eggs was taken on June 1, 1902, from a cavity 10 inches deep in an ash stump, 20 feet from the ground. A set of three eggs, in my collection, was collected by O. W. Howard on May 31, 1901; the nest was 6 feet above ground in a dead oak stump. Frank C. Willard took a set of five eggs on May 31, 1899, from a cavity 15 inches deep, 35 feet up in a large dead pine stub.

_Eggs._--Mearns’s woodpecker evidently lays three to six eggs. Major Bendire (1895) mentions a set of ten eggs, taken by F. H. Fowler, which were “evidently the product of two females.” The eggs are pure white, of course, and vary from short-ovate to rounded-ovate, with only a slight gloss. The measurements of 20 eggs average 24.07 by 18.91 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure =26.8= by =17.8= (a long narrow egg), 23.9 by =20.8=, and =22.4= by 19.5 millimeters.

_Plumages._--Mr. Swarth (1904) writes:

About July 1 the young birds begin to make their appearance so like the adults in general appearance that it is difficult to distinguish between them. The young of both sexes usually have the entire crown red, as in the adult male, but of a duller color, more of a brick red; but one young female secured has the red area very limited and coming to a point behind, so as to form a small, triangular shaped patch on the crown. Of seventeen specimens collected in the Huachucas, three show, more or less distinctly, white markings on the outer tail feathers. In one of these, an adult female, the marks consist of indistinct white spots, mostly on the inner web. The other two, juvenile females, have the outer feathers distinctly, though irregularly, barred with white for about half their length.

_Food._--The food of this woodpecker is evidently similar to that of other races of the species. Dr. Mearns (1890b) remarks: “Its habit of industriously hoarding food in the bark of pines, and in all sorts of chinks and hollows, is well known. These stores are the source of unending quarrels between this woodpecker and its numerous pilfering enemies; and I have laid its supplies under contribution myself, when short of provisions and lost from the command with which I had been traveling, by filling my saddlebags with half-dried acorns from under the loose bark of a dead pine.”

_Behavior._--Mrs. Bailey (1928) says: “An odd habit of the woodpeckers was happened on by Mr. Ligon in the Black Range. At dark, on March 15, 1913, seeing a bird enter a hole about eight feet up in an oak he closed it after it, and in the morning when he returned was surprised to find six birds in the one hole. As the woodpeckers do not nest until the last of May, and then in high dead pines, it was, of course, a night roost.”

Ed. S. Steele (1926) tells the following story:

I was camping in a pine forest not many miles from Reserve, N. Mex., accompanied by a small English terrier. In front of my tent stood a large dead pine, near the top of which there were a number of holes, evidently the homes of four pairs of Ant-eating Woodpeckers (_Balanosphyra formicivora aculeata_). A gray tassel-eared squirrel came scampering along, and was at once spied by the dog, which gave chase. The squirrel ran up the dead tree mentioned above, to be instantly assailed by the woodpeckers. Their constant cries and their sharp bills made things so uncomfortable for the squirrel that it ran down the tree to within a few feet of the dog, who sent him scampering to the top again with his eight antagonists constantly flaying him.

About this time there was a swish of wings, and a sharp-shinned hawk (_Accipiter velow_) darted like a streak among the woodpeckers. For an instant it seemed that one of them was doomed, but by a small margin it managed to escape, and in an instant they had all darted to cover among the green boughs of surrounding trees. All was quiet for a few brief seconds, when the woodpeckers returned to the attack, except one which perched on the topmost bough of a near-by tree, as guard or lookout, watching for the hawk. The other seven took up the fight with the squirrel.

In a few minutes the hawk again appeared on the scene, the guard gave a shrill call of warning, and all the woodpeckers were under cover before their enemy could reach them. The hawk, then, finding the birds on their guard, left and did not return. The terrier soon abandoned the tree, and the squirrel hurried down and scampered away; the woodpeckers quickly quieted down and went peacefully about their home affairs. I believe that the birds recognized in the squirrel a danger to their eggs or young.

BALANOSPHYRA FORMICIVORA MARTIRENSIS Grinnell and Swarth

SAN PEDRO WOODPECKER

HABITS

The acorn-storing woodpecker of the Sierra San Pedro Martir, northwestern Baja California, has been separated and described by Grinnell and Swarth (1926) under the above name, to which they have added the long common name “San Pedro Martir acorn-storing woodpecker.” Its distinguishing characters are given as follows:

Most nearly like _B. f. bairdi_. Distinguished from that species primarily by shorter wing, and by slightly shorter and notably weaker, more slender bill; also by average differences in head markings as set forth below. * * *

The relatively feeble bill of this bird, as compared with that of the upper California _bairdi_, is the most conspicuous character of this subspecies. In bill structure it is closely similar to _B. f. aculeata_, of Arizona.

The character of the head markings in the female is suggestive again of _aculeata_, the red area being usually more nearly square, as in that form, rather than shorter than wide, as in _bairdi_. The white frontal band averages slightly narrower than in _bairdi_, an approach toward the condition in _angustifrons_, of the Cape San Lucas region. The yellowish white (more dilutely yellow than in _bairdi_) U-mark on the lower throat in both sexes averages very much narrower in our specimens of _martirensis_ than in a large series of _bairdi_ usually only about half the width of the former as in the latter. This we are not quite confident of as a real character, in that there is a chance that “make” of specimen (whether or not the skin of the throat was stretched) affects the width of the white band. * * *

In character of the markings on the feathers of the breast there is no departure from the condition in _bairdi_. The upper breast is broadly and solidly black, the black band not penetrated posteriorly with white streaks to such an extent as in _aculeata_ and _angustifrons_.

The range is given as, “so far as now known, only parts of the Sierra San Pedro Martir, in northern Lower California, between latitudes 30° and 31°30″; altitude 5,800 to 7,200 feet; life-zone mainly Upper Sonoran (live-oak association), but also Transition locally or sporadically.”

The eggs are similar to those of other races of the species. The measurements of 12 eggs average 26.19 by 18.35 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure =25.1= by =19.4=, =19.0= by 18.5, and 22.8 by =16.8= millimeters.

ASYNDESMUS LEWIS (Gray)

LEWIS’S WOODPECKER

PLATE 29

HABITS

My first impression of this curious and interesting woodpecker was of a large, black bird that looked more like a crow than a woodpecker and that flew with the strong, steady flight of a crow or a jay, with none of the undulations common to so many woodpeckers. I made the same comment the second time I saw it, and am interested to see that the same impressions were made on many others.

It is essentially a bird of the more open country and among scattered large trees, rather than of the heavily forested regions. S. F. Rathbun writes to me of its haunts in western Washington: “In this section of the State are many tracts of land commonly known as ‘old burns.’ At one time all were forested, then later they were swept by fire and in some instances more than once; but even now, on many, still stand the scarred and blackened trunks of what formerly were large, tall trees; and it is in or about these unattractive places that this woodpecker is more apt to be found, although by no means is it restricted to them.”

Major Bendire (1895) says: “I have rarely seen Lewis’s woodpecker in deep forests; far more frequently just on the outskirts of the pines, in juniper groves on the table-lands bordering the pines, as well as in the deciduous timber along streams in the lowlands, and occasionally even in solitary cottonwoods or willows, near some little spring, in the drier sagebrush-covered flats, miles away from the nearest forest.”

Winton and Donald Weydemeyer (1928) say that in northwestern Montana it is--

a common summer resident throughout most of the Transition zone. It occurs most regularly in mixed broadleaf and conifer woods in river valleys, and in open forests of yellow pine along the foothills. It rarely ranges into the higher mountains, although we observed one individual in a Canadian zone forest of lodgepole pine and alpine fir, at an altitude of 6,160 feet. In cut-over or burned woods, it ranges to a higher elevation than in virgin forests.

In the eastern part of the county, this woodpecker is most common around farms and slashings, and in the more open woods of fir, larch, and yellow pine. Near Libby, in the western part, it seems to prefer creek-bottom woods of aspen, spruce, and cottonwood.

Johnson A. Neff (1928) says that his “acquaintance with this exotically brilliant woodpecker began in the mountains of Colorado, and even now the thought of it calls to mind that bleak, wind-blown area at an elevation of 8,500 feet, where these birds were very much at home in the dead trunks of spruce and hemlock that had once covered the mountains with living verdure.”

_Nesting._--Mr. Rathbun says in his notes: “In western Washington this woodpecker nests in June. Almost invariably the excavation for its nesting place is in a dead tree, the trunk of which is more or less blackened by fire, and this may be one reason why the bird is partial to the old burns. The tree may be one of several scattered about, or, infrequently, somewhat isolated. But in any event, this woodpecker shows a liking for a good-sized tree, broken off at quite a height, the outside of which has been charred or blackened by the flames. We have found many of its nesting places, and among these was one we shall not forget. In this case, the tree was a very large one, was broken off at a height of about 175 feet, and, as usual, had its outer surface burnt. Not far below its top was the entrance to the nest of a pair of these woodpeckers. Because it was so high it could be distinctly seen only by the use of glasses, but often we had noticed one of the birds enter it or come out of it. This nesting place was used for a number of years, and when it was in use we have gone out of our way more than once just to see these woodpeckers; for the top of the tree was used as a lookout station by the pair of birds, from which at times one or both would sail into the air after a flying insect.”

Major Bendire (1895) says that--

it is by no means as particular in the choice of a nesting site as the majority of our Woodpeckers. Shortly after arriving on their breeding grounds a suitable site is selected for the nest, and not infrequently the same excavation is used for successive years. In most cases the nesting sites are excavated either in the tops of tall pines or in dry cottonwoods, and in tall rotten tree trunks, occasionally in partly decayed limbs of sycamores, oaks, and less frequently in junipers and willows. The nests, as a rule, are not easily gotten at, and quite a number are practically inaccessible, varying in height from 6 to fully 100 feet from the ground.

* * * [At Camp Harney, Oreg.] these birds nested mostly in junipers. * * * The junipers which are selected for nesting sites were invariably decayed inside, and after the birds had chiseled through the live wood, which was usually only from 1 to 2 inches thick, the remainder of the work was comparatively easy; the same site, if not disturbed, was occupied for several seasons, and in such the inner cavity was much deeper, some being fully 30 inches deep and generally about 4 inches wide at the bottom. The entrance hole varies from 2 to 2½ inches in diameter, and when this is made by the birds it is always perfectly circular; but occasionally a pair will take advantage of an old knot hole, if it and the cavity it leads to are not too large.

The Weydemeyers (1928) say that in northwestern Montana this species exercises a wide range of selection for nesting trees; of four nests that they record, two were in larch stubs, one in a dead cottonwood, and one in a live yellow pine; these nests were in the Transition Zone at elevations between 2,000 and 3,100 feet.

Ed. S. Currier (1928) found Lewis’s woodpeckers nesting in what he called “colonies,” near Portland, Oreg.; in each of two dead cottonwoods, less than a mile apart, he found three occupied nests all on the same day.

_Eggs._--Bendire (1895) says:

From five to nine eggs are laid to a set; those of six or seven are the most common, but sets of eight are not very rare; I have found several of that number, and a single set of nine.

The eggs of Lewis’s woodpecker vary greatly in shape and also in size. They are mostly ovate or short ovate in shape, but an occasional set is decidedly rounded ovate, while others are elliptical ovate; the shell is close grained and, in most cases, dull, opaque white, without any gloss whatever. Some sets, however, are moderately glossy, but scarcely as much so as the better-known eggs of the red-headed woodpecker, and none are as lustrous as the eggs of the flicker.

The measurements of 58 eggs average 26.22 by 19.99 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure =30.48= by 21.34, 26.67 by =24.38=, and =23.37= by =17.27= millimeters.

_Young._--Major Bendire (1895) says of the young: