Part 4

_Behavior._--The hairy woodpecker is a much shier, more retiring bird than the confiding little downy; it is also more active and noisier; it usually will not allow such close approach but will dodge around the trunk of a tree or fly away, if an intruder comes too near, bounding through the air in a series of graceful dips and rebounds. Rex Brasher (1926) followed one for four hours that alighted “on two hundred and eighteen different trees, an average of nearly one a minute! The longest time he remained on one tree was seven minutes. This was a dead chestnut with most of the bark still adhering. By far the larger proportion of the trees were old chestnuts, and under their loosely attached covering he found most successful hunting. Rough-bark species were preferred--chestnuts, oaks, old maples and hickories, about in the order named. Smooth-barked ones received little notice.”

Dr. Morris Gibbs (1902) says: “Have my readers carefully watched a Woodpecker leave its perch on the trunk or limb? The bird throws itself backward from its vertical position by a leg spring, together with a tail movement, turns in the air in the fraction of a second and is sweeping away to the next perch. Arriving at the next resting place it makes a single counteracting stroke of the wings against the air, and perches lightly on the bark of limb or trunk.”

Like all woodpeckers, the hairy is an expert climber, perfectly at home on the trunk of a tree, or even on the under side of a branch, where its strong claws enable it to cling in almost any position or to move about with astonishing rapidity and skill in any direction. Its stiff tail feathers act as a prop and help to support it while hammering away at the bark with its powerful beak. Forbush (1927) says that it “is the embodiment of sturdy energy and persistent industry. Active, cheerful, ever busy, its life of arduous toil brings but one reward, a liberal sustenance. It sometimes spends nearly an hour of hard labor in digging out a single borer, but commonly reaches the object of its quest in much less time.”

_Voice._--The ordinary call of the hairy woodpecker is louder and shriller than that of the downy. Francis H. Allen says, in his notes, that it bears “about the same relation to it as the solitary sandpiper’s _peet-weet_ does to that of the spotted sandpiper. I hear it most frequently from the female. In fact, a female of the species that visits my place at all times of the year often utters this note continually, as if calling for a mate or claiming territory, but she never nests very near.”

Bendire (1895) describes its ordinary note as “a shrill, rattling note, _triii, triii_;” and again as several loud notes uttered on the wing, like _huip, huip_. Forbush (1927) calls the ordinary note “a high, sharp, rather metallic _chink_ or _click_.” Aretas A. Saunders (1929) says: “The call is a loud ‘keep,’ like that of the downy woodpecker, but louder. Another call is a loud rattle, suggesting that of the Kingfisher, but slurring down the scale. Another call, ‘kuweek kuweek kuweek kuweek,’ is used during the mating season, and suggests the Flicker’s ‘oweeka.’”

_Field marks._--The hairy woodpecker is a large edition of the downy woodpecker, a black and white woodpecker, white below and black above, spotted with white on the wings, and with a broad white stripe down the center of the back. Only the male has the red patch on the back of the neck. It can be distinguished from the downy by its much larger size, its more restless behavior, its relatively longer and larger bill, and by the lateral tail feathers, which are pure white in the hairy and somewhat barred with black in the downy.

_Enemies._--B. T. Gault, in his notes from Marshall County, Ill., states: “The hairy woodpecker is now a very rare breeder here owing to the fact that the English sparrow appropriates almost every nest hole as soon as it is excavated. I once saw one of these sparrows enter the hole of one of these birds, take a newly hatched bird out in its bill, flutter for an instant over the water (the nest was in a dead willow snag standing in the overflowed Illinois River bottoms), and drop the young bird into the water to drown. It then returned into the nest and soon appeared with another newly hatched woodpecker in its bill. As it fluttered over the water for an instant, my gun cracked and the sparrow died.”

Verdi Burtch (1923) writes: “April 16, 1922, when in a thin wood I heard a female hairy woodpecker making a great fuss as they do when one invades the vicinity of their nest. As I neared the place I saw the nest hole about twenty feet up in an elm stub. About ten feet away, sitting erect on a limb of another tree, was a red squirrel eating something that it held in its fore-paws. My 8-power binoculars showed this to be a naked baby bird, presumably a hairy woodpecker and not more than two or three days old.”

Mr. Shelley (1933) tells of a pair of hairy woodpeckers that were twice, in the same season, driven out of their nest by starlings and their eggs destroyed.

_Fall._--The Hairy woodpecker has often been said to be a permanent resident on its breeding grounds, but this is not strictly true. The species may be present all through the year over much of its range, but there is evidence to indicate a general southward movement in fall; the individuals seen in winter are probably not the same as those seen in summer. Moreover, there is a noticeable increase in numbers in certain localities in winter.

Lewis O. Shelley has sent me some full notes on the migration of hairy woodpeckers, as he has observed it near East Westmoreland, N. H., from which I quote as follows: “For four years I have watched, in the autumn months, passing hairies that go through, some dropping down into the valley to feed as they go along, but others passing over the valley from hill to hill (2 miles) without stopping. In passing through, they traverse in general the same route each year. They come from an eastern and continue on in a western direction at an oblique angle to the Connecticut River, which they must cross in the vicinity of Brattleboro, Vt.

“These migrants usually appear here late in August or early in September and continue to arrive at irregular intervals until late in October. It is common for one, or two, rarely more, to pass together; but such occurrences have happened, as on October 24, 1934, when, beginning soon after noon and lasting until four o’clock, the birds continued to pass through. At least 12 were seen as I walked up a roadway parallel to their course; and other moving birds were heard. It was also noticed that they kept spaced 40 to 50 yards apart, keeping abreast of one another, traversing in a leisurely manner; and as they approached a rock maple woods, the tendency was to close in like passing through the neck of a bottle and, once through the woods, again to spread out. Their progress was rather fast; and they fed little, if at all. They often called, as though to locate each other, since they were keeping about 40 yards apart, as was easily noted when they crossed pasture and mowing land.

“I followed and watched in particular a male that continued keeping along ahead of me. He repeatedly crossed the road in a zigzag manner. Climbing to the top of a fence post or stump, he made lengthy observations, probably noting the progress of the other birds, and often answered their ringing calls. He, as well as the others, gave the appearance of a stranger in a new environment, truly a migrant. I noted how low the birds were passing, quite frequently flying not over 2 feet from the ground over open spaces, where long, bounding flights were made.”

L. McI. Terrill told Mr. Forbush (1927) that the few local breeding birds disappear from the vicinity of Montreal early in autumn, and others, in a very noticeable wave, appear toward the end of October or early in November.

_Winter._--Aside from the regular migratory movements, the hairy woodpecker is much more given to wandering about in winter. It is apt to forsake its woodland haunts and travel about in search of food, coming frequently into the farmer’s orchard, into rural villages, and even into thickly settled communities in some of our larger cities. Here it often joins the merry parties at our winter feeding stations, feeding readily on the suet or scraps of meat provided for our insect-eating birds; and here the smaller birds show due respect for its larger size, or perhaps for its formidable beak, and it is usually allowed to eat alone. It seems to be a solitary bird at this season, for we seldom see more than one at a time. I find it not so constant and regular a visitor to my feeding station as the downy woodpecker and some other birds; it probably wanders about more.

Mr. Forbush (1927) writes: “During the inclement season it is said to require a sheltered place in which to sleep and, like the downy woodpecker, to excavate a hole in a tree for a sleeping chamber, but there is evidence that it does not always seek such shelter, as the late Charles E. Bailey and myself watched one for several winter evenings in a grove, clinging upright against a tree trunk in the usual woodpecker position. Night after night, the bird was there at dusk, remained there until dark, and was there also at daybreak each morning in precisely the same place.”

Joseph J. Hickey tells me that, around the lower Hudson River Valley in winter, woodpeckers obtain much of their food by deliberately scaling the bark off trees in search for their insect food. The Arctic three-toed woodpeckers work mainly on pines and hemlocks, but the hairies appear to confine their work to the hemlocks, using the same methods as the three-toed.

DISTRIBUTION

_Range._--Northern and Central America; not regularly migratory.

The range of the hairy woodpecker extends =north= to Alaska (Kenai Peninsula, Fairbanks, and Fort Egbert); Yukon (Forty Mile, Fort Reliance, and Macmillan River); Mackenzie (Fort Wrigley, Lake Hardisty, and Fort Resolution); northern Saskatchewan (mouth of the Charlot River and Poplar Point); northern Manitoba (Grand Rapids, probably Fort Churchill, and probably York Factory); Ontario (Hat Island and Cobalt); Quebec (Blue Sea Lake, Quebec City, Godbout, Eskimo Bay, and Anticosti Island); and Newfoundland (Nicholsville and Raleigh). From this point the range extends =southward= along the Atlantic coast to southern Florida (Eau Gallie); the western Bahama Islands (Great Bahama, Abaco, and Andros); and Panama (Boquete). The =southern= boundary of the range extends westward from Panama (Boquete); Nicaragua (San Rafael); western Guatemala (Tecpam); Chiapas (San Cristobal); to Guerrero (Chilpancingo and Omilteme). From this point, =northward= through the mountains of western Mexico, northern Baja California (Sierra San Pedro Martir and Sierra Juarez); and the coastal districts of California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia, to Alaska (Chilkoot, Chitina Moraine, and the Kenai Peninsula).

As outlined, the range is for the entire species, which has, however, been so divided that no less than 13 subspecies are currently recognized as occupying the range north of Mexico, while still others occur in Central American countries. The typical eastern hairy woodpecker (_D. v. villosus_), occurs in the Eastern United States and southern Canada west to Manitoba, North Dakota, and Colorado and south to North Caralina and central Texas. The northern hairy woodpecker (_D. v. septentrionalis_) occupies the zone to the north, from southeastern Quebec, northwestward to western Mackenzie, Yukon, and central Alaska. The Newfoundland woodpecker (_D. v. terraenovae_) is found only on the island of that name. The southern hairy woodpecker (_D. v. auduboni_) occupies the southeastern part of the range from Missouri, Illinois, and western Virginia south to southeastern Texas and southern Florida. The Sitka hairy woodpecker (_D. v. sitkensis_) is found in southeastern Alaska and northern British Columbia. The Queen Charlotte woodpecker (_D. v. picoideus_) is found only on the group of islands of that name off the coast of British Columbia. Harris’s woodpecker (_D. v. harrisi_) occupies the coastal regions of southern British Columbia south to northwestern California. Cabanis’s woodpecker (_D. v. hyloscopus_) is confined to certain coastal and mountain areas of California, chiefly in the southern part. The Lower California hairy woodpecker (_D. v. scrippsae_) is restricted to the Sierra Juarez and the Sierra San Pedro Martir of Baja California. The Modoc woodpecker (_D. v. orius_) is found in the Sierra Nevada of central California north to Oregon and Washington and east to Nevada. The Rocky Mountain hairy woodpecker (_D. v. monticola_) is found through the Rocky Mountain region from central British Columbia south to northern New Mexico and east (in winter) to western South Dakota and Nebraska. The white-breasted woodpecker (_D. v. leucothorectis_) is found chiefly in Arizona and New Mexico but also east to central Texas and north to southern Utah. The Chihuahua woodpecker (_D. v. icastus_) occurs principally in western Mexico but occurs also in southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico.

_Migration._--As stated above, the hairy woodpeckers are generally nonmigratory and may be found in midwinter even in the northern parts of their range, as Alaska, Mackenzie (Fort Simpson), and Manitoba (Aweme, Minnedosa, and Roseau River). Nevertheless, some individuals are given to a certain amount of wandering during the winter months, which explains the occasional records of some subspecies far outside of their normal range. There also is more or less vertical migration in the mountainous regions of the north and west, the birds descending into the lower valleys during the winter season. This is noted particularly in the Rocky Mountain form, which in winter has been taken east to Nebraska and South Dakota.

Despite the fact that during the past 18 years several hundred individuals of this species have been marked with numbered bands, and many have been subsequently recaptured, there is no evidence that any of these moved at any time more than a few miles from the point of banding.

_Egg dates._--British Columbia: 8 records, April 27 to June 24. California: 43 records, March 23 to June 21; 22 records, April 28 to May 29, indicating the height of the season. Colorado: 10 records, May 5 to June 18. Florida: 18 records, April 10 to May 16; 9 records, April 22 to 28. Illinois: 8 records, May 1 to 23. Iowa: 8 records, April 21 to May 15. Labrador: 5 records, May 26 to 30. Massachusetts: 17 records, May 1 to June 5; 9 records, May 10 to 19. Ontario: 8 records, May 6 to June 16.

DRYOBATES VILLOSUS SEPTENTRIONALIS (Nuttall)

NORTHERN HAIRY WOODPECKER

HABITS

This large northern race of the hairy woodpecker inhabits the Canadian Zone of northern North America, north almost to the limit of trees, from central Alaska and northern Canada southward. In the eastern portions of southern Canada it intergrades with typical _villosus_, and in northwestern Montana with _monticola_, where the ranges of these races meet. Specimens have been taken as far north as Fort Simpson, on the Mackenzie River, in latitude 62° N., and at Fort Reliance, on the upper Yukon River, Alaska, in about latitude 66° N. It may occur as a straggler farther north, where it can find sufficient tree growth, but it is said to be rare north of latitude 56° N., and apparently it does not reach the Arctic coast or the coast of Bering Sea. It is a decidedly larger bird than typical _villosus_, the white markings average rather larger, and the white is purer. In the southern portion of its range, where it begins to intergrade with _villosus_, these characters are, of course, less pronounced and many individuals are difficult to name.

Living in a region over much of which coniferous forests predominate, this woodpecker frequents and breeds in this type of forest. Winton and Donald Weydemeyer (1928) say that it is an abundant permanent resident in Lincoln County, Mont., where it intergrades with _monticola_. They also say:

In the valleys it is most numerous, during summer, in forests containing a large percentage stand of western larch (_Larix occidentalis_). The next trees in attractiveness seem to be Douglas fir (_Pseudotsuga taxifolia_), western yellow pine (_Pinus ponderosa_), and Engelmann spruce (_Picea engelmanni_), in the order named. In the Hudsonian zone it frequents trees of white-bark pine (_Pinus albicaulis_) and alpine larch (_Larix lyallii_). The species is noticeably rare or absent in forests containing nearly pure stands of western white pine (_Pinus monticola_), arborvitae (_Thuja plicata_), or lodgepole pine (_Pinus contorta_), except where the woods have been logged or injured by fire.

_Nesting._--The same observers say: “In Lincoln County this species uses a wide variety of nesting sites. Of eight nests included in our records, three were in live aspens; one in a live cottonwood; one in a live larch; one in a dead larch, one in a dead Douglas fir; and one in a woodpecker nesting box.”

Ernest Thompson Seton (1890) found a nest in a tall poplar tree about 30 feet from the ground, in Manitoba; the hole was about a foot deep, 3 inches wide inside and 2 inches at the entrance. John Macoun (1909) quotes Rev. C. J. Young as saying: “Most of the nests I have seen have been in wet places or near water, and almost all were in white ash trees, from thirty to fifty feet from the ground. Two nests were in elm trees and one in a telegraph pole by the roadside not more than ten feet from the ground.”

Roderick MacFarlane (1908) writes: “On the 6th of May, 1885, Mr. Reid discovered a nest in a hole in a dry standing poplar tree near Fort Providence. There were eight eggs therein, and the parent was seen and shot. * * * At Fort St. James, Stuart’s Lake, on the 25th of May, 1889, a native hunter found a nest holding four fresh eggs in a similar position. Both parents in this instance were also observed near by and shot. On 4th June, in the same locality, an Indian girl brought us four eggs. * * * The nest was found in a hole in a dry pine tree, at a height of several feet above the ground.”

Henry Mousley (1916) says that near Hatley, Quebec, “as a rule the nest hole is somewhat high up but on one occasion I found one which was only three feet above the ground in a birch stub, containing four eggs, the entrance hole being two inches in diameter, extreme depth eleven inches and average width two and three quarters inches.”

P. B. Philipp and B. S. Bowdish (1919), referring to northern New Brunswick, say: “A nest with young was found in a dead maple stub in a burnt barren, on May 29, 1917. On May 30 of the same year another nest about fifteen feet up in a dead maple stub in a similar situation, contained four eggs, very slightly incubated. On June 9, 1917, a third nest in a cedar telephone pole beside a public road was examined. It was at a height of about nine feet; cavity 14½ inches deep; entrance 2⅛ inches in height by 2¼ inches in width. This nest contained four nearly fresh eggs.”

_Eggs._--The northern hairy woodpecker lays three to five eggs; the eight eggs mentioned above by MacFarlane may have been the product of two females or eggs of the boreal flicker; in the latter case the collector may have shot the wrong parent. The eggs are like those of the eastern hairy woodpecker but average slightly larger. The measurements of 41 eggs average 25.39 by 20.10 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure =28.45= by 22.10, 27.43 by =22.35=, and =21.5= by =16.6= millimeters.

The plumage changes, food, behavior, voice, and other habits apparently do not differ materially from those of its southern relative. It is said to be a permanent resident throughout its range, but there is probably some southward migration or wandering from at least the northern portion of its range and perhaps from the southern parts also. That some individuals remain far north in winter is shown by the fact that the Fort Simpson specimen was taken on December 29, 1860. The Weydemeyers (1928) say that during winter, in northwestern Montana, “this woodpecker is commonly found in mixed broad-leaf and conifer associations along streams, but it is most abundant at that season in the larch woods of the valleys.”

DRYOBATES VILLOSUS AUDUBONI (Swainson)

SOUTHERN HAIRY WOODPECKER

PLATE 5

HABITS

In the Lower Austral Zone of the South Atlantic and Gulf States we find this small race of the hairy woodpecker. In addition to being decidedly smaller than its northern relative, the white of the under parts is less pure, and the white markings of the upper parts are somewhat smaller.

Arthur H. Howell (1932) says of its haunts in Florida: “The southern hairy woodpecker, though not particularly shy, prefers the wilder sections for its home. It occurs in a variety of situations--the open pine forests, oak hammocks, and the hardwoods of the deep river swamps. The birds are of a rather solitary disposition, and rarely is more than a single bird or a pair found near together.”

_Nesting._--Mr. Howell (1932) says that “the nests are located 12 to 45 feet from the ground in holes excavated in dead oaks or willow stubs, or in cypresses growing on the edge of a swamp.” S. A. Grimes (1932) says: “A nest thirty feet up in a live cypress near Eastport [Florida] held three eggs on April 13. Two well feathered young were found in a hole fifteen feet up in a dead sweet gum in southern Duval County on May 13. A nest eight feet up in a pine stub in northern St. Johns County contained three heavily incubated eggs on May 11.”

Arthur T. Wayne (1910) says that in South Carolina “the nest is very hard to find; indeed I have found but six nests, two which contained eggs, and four which contained young. I have known this species to excavate a hole and raise a brood in a limb of a living live oak tree, but it generally excavates its hole in a dead tree and at a great height. A set of three fresh eggs was taken April 7, 1898, from a hole 40 feet from the ground in a dead pine. This hole was 14 inches deep. The young remain in the hole for more than a month after they are hatched.”

Harold H. Bailey (1913) says that in Virginia “dead stubs of gum and poplar treetops seem to be their favorite location for a nesting site, varying from 25 to 60 feet up, the cavity from eight to twelve inches deep. They are one of our earliest breeding birds, the drilling of the nesting cavity beginning the last week in March, and by April 10th to 15th finds a full complement or set of eggs, numbering from four to six.”

J. G. Suthard writes to me of a nest he found near Madisonville, Ky. The cavity was “excavated in a dead crab apple stub in open woodland. Only the female was observed excavating the hole and caring for the eggs, which proved to be infertile. No male was ever observed near the nesting stub, though it was carefully observed.” M. G. Vaiden tells me of a nest 9 feet up in a chinaberry tree in a yard at Rosedale, Miss., and another that was 23 feet up in a pecan tree and 3 feet out in a dead snag.