Part 9
Here, at close range, on a level with our eyes, we realize how rapid the bird’s motions are. The beak strikes and draws back--the two movements a single flash. The head turns to one side, to the other side, bringing first one dark shining eye, then the other, to bear on the bark; we see the head in the two positions, although we get only a hint of the motion between.
Thus the day’s work goes on, until the downy, replete with the results of its industry, rests motionless for a while on a high, sunny branch, taking its ease.
The downy woodpecker, like most of its family, has an undulating flight when flying any considerable distance. The undulations are not deep, as in the plunging flight of a goldfinch; it gives rather the effect of a ship pitching slightly in a head sea. A few strokes carry the bird up to the crest of the wave--the wings clapping close to the sides of the body--then, at the crest, with the wings shut, the bird tilts slightly forward, and slides down into the next trough.
Besides employing its strong beak and the powerful muscles of its neck to secure food and dig out a cavity for its nest, the downy woodpecker makes use of them to beat a loud tattoo on the branch of a tree or some other resonant object. This habit is oftenest noticed in spring, when it appears to form a part of courtship or a prelude to it, but Lewis O. Shelley says in his notes that “on February 3, 1934, a male downy commenced its drumming on a dead elm branch near the house. A few hours earlier the temperature had been 5° below zero. On the 6th, 8th, and 9th he was tattooing at the usual hour, about 8 a. m. On the 8th the temperature registered zero, and on the 9th 18° below zero!”
Dr. Charles W. Townsend, in his Ipswich manuscript notes, under date of March 16, 1930, speaks of “a male bird hammering a _rat-at-at-too_ on the apex of a telephone pole for three seconds. He then paused, hunching up a little and looking about for from five to twelve seconds, before resuming the hammering. He made a small round dent in the pole, but there were no chips.”
A. Dawes DuBois tells in his notes the following anecdote: “One April day I watched this avian drummer as he entertained himself by beating on the wooden insulator-pins of an unused cross-arm on a telegraph pole. From each pin he rang out a different tone--loud, clear, and high-pitched. It was evident that this pleased him, for he hopped from one pin to another to repeat the variations.”
I have found in the books no mention of drumming by the female downy, but at the end of the extract from William Brewster’s notes, quoted under “Courtship,” in which he describes a mutual display by a pair of birds, he adds: “Both sexes drum, also.”
William Brewster (1876b) points out the difference between the tattoo of the downy woodpecker and that of the hairy woodpecker and the yellow-bellied sapsucker. He says: “_P. pubescens_ has a long unbroken roll, _P. villosus_ a shorter and louder one with a greater interval between each stroke: while _S. varius_ commencing with a short roll ends very emphatically with five or six distinct disconnected taps.”
R. Owen Merriam (1920) gives, from Hamilton, Canada, an instance of “snow bathing.” He says:
This morning a female Downy Woodpecker that I was watching flew to a horizontal branch and proceeded vigorously to bathe in the loose snow lying there. Like a Robin in a puddle, Mrs. Downy ducked her head, ruffled her feathers, and fluttered her wings, throwing some of the snow over her back and scattering the rest to the winds. As all the snow fell off one part of the branch, she moved along to another, until she had cleared a place about two feet long. Two forks held more snow than the straight limb, and apparently Mrs. Downy enjoyed herself immensely when she came to them.
Dr. Arthur A. Allen (1928) in his admirable “Downy Woodpecker’s Story,” published in the School Department of Bird-Lore, says, letting the bird tell its own story: “When cold weather sets in, * * * I begin drilling roosting-holes where I can spend the nights. I usually have to drill quite a number for they seem to be quite popular with other birds like the Chickadees and Nuthatches, and sometimes when I get ready to retire I find my hole occupied by a flying squirrel or a whole family of deer mice, and it is easier to drill a new hole than to drive them out. One winter I got tired of drilling holes and every night retired to a bird-house and perched on an old Wren’s nest that was in it.”
Many ornithologists, even as long ago as the time of Wilson and Nuttall, have believed that the rows of small holes, such as we commonly see in the bark of our orchard trees, are drilled by the downy woodpecker. These little holes, about three-eighths of an inch across, circular when old, but oval when fresh, are arranged in fairly regular rows parallel to the ground, and sometimes in tiers, when they have the appearance of a waffle. In settled regions they are found oftenest in the trunks and the larger branches of trees belonging to the rose family--most commonly of all in apple trees. The holes may be within 3 feet of the ground or as high as 20 feet or more above it, depending on the height of the tree. Oftentimes they are very close together; I have counted as many as six of them in the space of an inch and a half. The question has arisen whether the downy woodpecker ever makes these holes.
We know now, what the older ornithologists did not know, that it is a regular habit of the yellow-bellied sapsucker to drill such holes, but there are plenty of statements in the ornithological literature today ascribing the work to the downy woodpecker as well.
Dr. Charles W. Townsend (1932) gives an able summary of the literature on this question and, after carefully weighing the evidence, comes “to the conclusion that these well known and characteristic circles of holes are made by true sapsuckers and not by downy or hairy woodpeckers.”
He throws a good deal of doubt on some seemingly definite observations from correspondents quoted by Forbush in his “Birds of Massachusetts,” when he says that “many leave one in considerable uncertainty as to whether the correspondents actually saw the downy woodpecker making the rings of holes, or merely tapping in the same region, or drinking the sap, or eating cambium from holes whose origin was not ascertained. It may be that some of the correspondents were unable to distinguish the true species of woodpecker.”
Dr. Townsend cites several observations, two of which are quoted below. If the first of these had not been correctly interpreted, and if the other had not been seen in its entirety, they might have led to error. He says:
There is one observation, however, which should be quoted here, as it is of considerable interest in this discussion, an observation made by a capable observer with great care. Forbush says, _loc. cit._, vol. II, p. 268: “The first trustworthy evidence, however, that I obtained regarding the tapping of trees for sap by the Downy Woodpecker was in 1899, when my assistant, the late Charles E. Bailey, on April 6 watched one for several hours. His report reads: ‘At 12:30 I found a Downy Woodpecker, and watched him till 2:45; he took three larvae from a maple stub, just under the bark. He next tapped two small swamp maples, four and six feet from the ground, and spent most of the time taking sap. He tapped the tree by picking it a few times very lightly; it looked like a slight cut, slanting a little. The bird would sit and peck the sap out of the lower part of the cut. The cut was so small the sap did not collect very fast. The bird would go and sit for a long time in a large tree and not move, then it would come back and take more sap. It did this three times while I was watching it. It did not care to take any food but the sap.’ * * * Mr. Bailey cut off and brought me the limb, the bark of which was perforated by the bird. * * * The perforations passed through the bark to the wood, but did not enter it and they do not in the least resemble in shape those made by the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker.” Here is just what we should expect in a woodpecker not specialized as a sapsucker. * * *
The next record is of considerable significance in this discussion, and had I seen only the latter half of the drama, my conclusions might have been different. In the Wenham swamp on May 11, 1906, my notes state that Glover M. Allen and I found a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker drilling holes in a white pine. His movements were slow and he paid little attention to us standing below him at the foot of the tree. When he departed, a female Downy Woodpecker visited the holes.
Speaking of his own observations, Dr. Townsend says: “I may state that, although I have long watched Downy Woodpeckers gleaning insects on and in the bark and wood of trees at all seasons of the year, I have never seen them dig circles of holes in the bark. * * * I have never found fresh rings of holes except during the time of the sapsucker migrations.”
_Voice._--The downy woodpecker is by no means a noisy bird; compared to the red-headed woodpecker, with its loud rattling calls, or to the shouting, boisterous flicker, it is quiet and demure. Nevertheless, we cannot be for long near one of these little birds, hidden high among leafy branches, before we learn of its presence. Within a few minutes, long before we catch sight of it, we are almost certain to hear its voice.
Its call note is a single abrupt syllable, like _tchick_. Although this note is of sufficient volume to carry a considerable distance, it is not a loud note even when heard at short range. As in the case of many bird notes, it is recognizable from the voice of any other bird hereabouts once we have become familiar with it, yet it is not easy to say how it differs from numerous other calls that might be suggested by the same letters. I believe one characteristic of the note that helps us distinguish it is its shortness--it is over almost as soon as begun, like a dot in the telegraph code. But in spite of being sharp, it is a modest little sound; it does not ring through the woods like the wild call of the hairy woodpecker.
Another note is a long whinny made up of a dozen or more _tchicks_. These increase in rapidity soon after the beginning of the series, and the pitch drops rather sharply. Near the close, the volume diminishes, and the whinny ends with a “dying fall.”
Elizabeth Sampson (1934) brings this note very clearly to our mind when she speaks of it as “a handful of his staccato notes * * * flung out in a rapid run, gaining speed as they came, till they almost tumbled over each other at the end.”
This whinny is also given, although not often, without any fall in pitch.
The downy woodpecker has other notes in its vocabulary, some of which are described under courtship, but, compared to the two noted above, they are rarely heard. It may be that some of these notes are only modifications of the call note, uttered with a slightly changed inflection. One, a single short note, has a distinct vocal quality.
Of the young birds in the nest, Dr. Arthur A. Allen (1928) says that they “keep up an incessant chippering, especially when they get the least bit hungry, and at times they sound almost like a bee-hive, from the ground.”
After the young birds have left the nest, I have often heard them give a series of _tchicks_ similar to the whinny of the adults, but in a weaker voice and _all on the same pitch_. However, this note evidently varies, for Francis H. Allen says in his notes that the young have also a rattle resembling the kingfisher rattle of _D. villosus_, but fainter and falling in pitch like the similar note of the adult.
_Field marks._--The downy, the smallest of our woodpeckers, may be separated at once from any other woodpecker, except the hairy, by the broad white stripe down the back.
The hairy is half again as large as the downy, but in situations where comparative size counts little, the downy may be recognized by its short bill--no longer than its head. The hairy’s bill is longer even in proportion to the size of the bird.
_Enemies._--Lewis O. Shelley, who as a bird bander has handled many downy woodpeckers, says in his notes: “I find this species practically free from parasites, but I have found among the feathers the two bird flies, _Ornithoica confluenta_ and _Ornithomyia anchineuria_.”
Alexander Wilson (1832) shows that the house wren, although not an open enemy of the downy, causes it a good deal of annoyance by stealing its nest sometimes. He says:
The house wren, who also builds in the hollow of a tree, but who is neither furnished with the necessary tools nor strength for excavating such an apartment for himself, allows the woodpeckers to go on, till he thinks it will answer his purpose, then attacks them with violence, and generally succeeds in driving them off. I saw some weeks ago a striking example of this, where the woodpeckers we are now describing, after commencing in a cherry-tree within a few yards of the house, and having made considerable progress, were turned out by the wren; the former began again on a pear-tree in the garden, fifteen or twenty yards off, whence, after digging out a most complete apartment, and one egg being laid, they were once more assaulted by the same impertinent intruder, and finally forced to abandon the place.
Maurice Thompson (1885) describes thus the bird’s defense against the attack of a goshawk:
I once saw a goshawk pursuing a downy woodpecker, when the latter darted through a tuft of foliage and flattened itself close upon the body of a thick oak bough, where it remained as motionless as the bark itself. The hawk alighted on the same bough within two feet of its intended victim, and remained sitting there for some minutes, evidently looking in vain for it, with nothing but thin air between monster and morsel. The woodpecker was stretched longitudinally on the bough, its tail and beak close to the bark, its black and white speckled feathers looking like a continuation of the wrinkles and lichen.
More commonly, when attacked by a hawk, the downy dodges behind a branch and, if the hawk catch sight of it again, either winds round the branch or dives behind another one. By this adroit defense the downy has a fair chance of eluding the hawk’s attack.
_Fall and winter._--We see little change in the behavior of the downy woodpecker at the approach of autumn, at the time when many of the migratory birds are beginning to show a daily increasing restlessness, seeming on tiptoe to start on their long journey, moving about actively in their new feathers, and breaking out sometimes with a phrase of postnuptial song. In the role of permanent resident, the downy remains calm in the midst of the bustle of travel; it may join the hurrying groups for a time, or become surrounded by them, but it does not catch the contagion of departure, and soon drops behind to continue its local round.
The downy is not forced to seek the sun and warmth and the inexhaustible food of the Tropics, for the woodlands of New England and southeastern Canada are stored with food that, with a roosting hole, enables the bird to withstand the severest winter. But this food is limited; the insects that have been multiplying all summer, thus adding continually to the woodpeckers’ supply of food, stop multiplying when the frosts come, and will add no more until spring.
The downy is not a bird that ranges widely in search of food; moreover, for protection against the weather it is held to the vicinity of its roosting hole. Therefore each bird, in order to be sure of sufficient food for itself during the cold months, must maintain dominion over a territory large enough to support it through the winter.
Thus it comes about that in autumn the downy _does_ perforce change its habits, or rather its attitude toward other birds of its species. The families disperse, and until the next breeding season each individual becomes a solitary bird, living in a restricted region, which it defends against trespass, resenting and repelling the approach of any other downy woodpecker.
This reversal of attitude or character--the change from a member of a family to an anchorite in fall, and back again in spring--takes place gradually, we may suppose, and not exactly at the same time in every bird. Hence one bird meeting another in autumn, while the change is in progress, may underestimate the degree to which it has drawn away from its fellows, or, in the spring, may overestimate the amount of cordiality that has returned to the wintering anchorite. This lack of understanding may give rise to behavior difficult or impossible for us to interpret.
Sometimes the relationship between two downies is clear enough, as when, on September 20, 1910, I saw a male fly repeatedly at a female in a menacing way and drive her off; and when on November 3, 1935, I saw a female bird fly toward a male, which was perched near a hole in an electric-light pole, from which he did not retire, as a perched bird commonly does when approached by a bird on the wing, but held his ground while she flew away; and when Lewis O. Shelley (MS.) tells of a female bird “rushing with antagonistic attitude at her two daughters” and also driving off her granddaughters whenever they invaded her winter territory in autumn, all these birds being identified by bands.
There are cases, however, in which the relationship between the birds is very puzzling. In the following scene, from my notes, there is a hint of hostility or remonstrance, but a suggestion of courtship also--out of place, it seems, in autumn between two female birds. “October 15, 1935. Two birds are in a large, bare maple tree; one is noticeably larger than the other, but neither one has a red occipital patch. They keep near each other, one following the other by short, quick flights. They perch perfectly motionless for a moment a foot or two apart; then both together sway their heads, swinging them quickly down and up to one side, down and up to the other side. The swing is very rapid, like the wink of an eye. They flit their wings upward and outward, also with the speed of a wink, over and over--all this without a sound. They fly behind a branch sometimes but keep mostly in sight of each other, and, although neither attacks, each seems wary of attack and dodges away when approached. They sometimes alight on very slender branches, and once a bird goes to the ground where it stands with its head held high up. They move very actively and lightly, with never the slightest blundering, flitting silently and easily from branch to branch.”
The following astonishing story, taken from William Brewster’s Concord journal (1937), tells of a case in which antagonism of unknown cause leads to the killing with brutal violence of a female downy by a male:
March 20, 1911. We were in the dining-room, consulting about the day’s work, when we heard the _tchick_ note of the Downy Woodpecker repeated almost incessantly and very rapidly just outside. For a moment or more we paid no attention to it. But something unusual in its quality and its insistence soon led me to look out and this was what I saw:
On the snow, among the outermost stems of the lilacs on one side of the dense thicket that they form was a female Downy with extended and quivering wings. About her hopped or rather danced a handsome male, showing the red on his occiput very conspicuously. He kept striking at her head with his bill and occasionally he held on for a few seconds, when the two birds fluttered about together and perhaps rolled over once or twice, closely united. At first I thought it an amatory encounter and I am still almost certain that the male attempted to secure sexual contact with the female once or twice. But if so it could not have been his primary or at least sole object. For he continued to peck her head even when she was lying almost motionless on the snow. For a time she seemed to be trying to escape and for fully two minutes her cries were piteous and incessant. At length he left her and flew up into an elm where he clung for a moment or two, making what seemed to me a very unusual display of the red on his occiput. Then of a sudden he swooped down on the female, who had meanwhile been cowering in the middle of a cluster of lilac stems, on the snow. Dragging her forth from this slight shelter into an open space, he attacked her again, this time with obvious fury, fairly raining a shower of blows on the back of her head. She seemed too weak to make any further attempt to escape and her cries, although continued, were so faint that we could only just hear them. I now realized for the first time that he was inspired by the _lust of killing_ and not by sexual ardor. It was very hard to refrain from rushing out and driving him away but I restrained the impulse, not being willing to interrupt a tragedy of such extraordinary, if repulsive, interest. It would have made no difference anyway, for, this final onslaught lasted only a very few seconds. During its continuance the male Downy seemed literally beside himself with rage. No Butcher Bird that I have ever watched has shown, while dealing with a Mouse or Sparrow, more murderous energy. After finishing the foul deed he left the female lying perfectly motionless and flew up again into the elm. We now went out and picked up the female. She was still living but unable to move. The [back] of her head was soaked in blood and her bare skull showed in places. She died a little later. I skinned her and preserved her skull which I have attached to the skin. It is _punctured in 10 or 12 places_. The bird was in normal condition physically with healthy-looking ovary the ovules undeveloped. The only injuries were to the skull.