_Cover sketch: Saw-whet owl, by Bob Hines of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Washington, D.C._ Cavity-Nesting Birds of North American Forests Virgil E. Scott Denver Wildlife Research Center Keith E. Evans North Central Forest Experiment Station David R. Patton Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station Charles P. Stone Denver Wildlife Research Center Illustrated by Arthur Singer Agriculture Handbook 511 November 1977 Forest Service U.S. Department of Agriculture For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Washington, D.C. 20402 Stock No. 001-000-03726-9 Scott, Virgil E., Keith E. Evans, David R. Patton, and Charles P. Stone. 1977. Cavity-nesting birds of North American forests. U.S. Dep. Agric., Agric. Handb. 511, 112 p. Habitat, cavity requirements, and foods are described for 85 species of birds that nest in cavities in dead or decadent trees. Intensive removal of such trees would disastrously affect breeding habitat for many of these birds that help control destructive forest insects. Birds are illustrated in color; distributions are mapped. PREFACE _This Handbook is the result of a cooperative effort between the Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. Authors Scott and Stone are wildlife research biologists with the Fish and Wildlife Service’s Denver Wildlife Research Center. Scott is stationed in Fort Collins, Colorado. Authors Evans and Patton are principal wildlife biologists with the Forest Service’s North Central Forest Experiment Station and Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station, respectively. Evans is stationed in Columbia, Missouri, in cooperation with the University of Missouri, while Patton is stationed in Tempe, Arizona, in cooperation with Arizona State University._ _Special thanks are due Arthur Singer, who graciously donated the use of his illustrations from “A guide to field identification: Birds of North America,” by Robbins, Bruun, and Zim, which are reproduced here with permission of the Western Publishing Company. The distribution maps are also reproduced with the permission of Western Publishing Company._ © Copyright 1966 by Western Publishing Company, Inc.