Life histories of North American woodpeckersBent, Arthur Cleveland
Science
Life histories of North American woodpeckers
Bent, Arthur Cleveland
Birds -- North America; Woodpeckers -- North America
At Tamarack Flat, on May 26, 1919, a female white-headed
woodpecker was seen to flush from her nest about ten feet
above ground in a dead pine stub. Tapping by one of us on
a nearby hole had caused her to leave, but she returned
to the vicinity almost immediately. Then, for fully 25
minutes, while the observer remained within watching
distance the bird foraged, preened, and flew about from one
to another of the circle of 8 or 10 trees within a 50-foot
radius of the nest, but always kept the nest tree in her
sight. About every 5 minutes she would fly to the nest. In
approaching it, she would swoop below its level and then
glide up to the site with decreasing speed so as to end
her flight with little or no momentum. Then, having gained
claw-hold, she would poke the fore part of her body into
the hole, withdraw it at once and repeat this performance
four or five times before flying away again. Finally, after
fully half an hour had elapsed, and her suspicions had been
allayed, she went in, to remain. During this entire time
the male kept out of sight and was heard only twice.
Van Rossem and Pierce (1915) noted its manner of drinking, thus:
“White-headed woodpeckers were often observed to drink at a small
stream near our camp at Bear Lake, where a pine sapling grew from the
edge of a small pool. On this sapling the birds would alight, usually
about three feet from the base, ‘hitch’ quickly backwards down the
trunk to the water, and, leaning sharply to one side, drink by quick,
nervous dips.”
Another method of drinking is described by Grinnell, Dixon, and
Linsdale (1930), as follows: “In mid-afternoon one flew down from a
yellow pine to some shallow, running water in an open roadside near
Mineral. It alighted in a horizontal position on the ground and dipped
its bill into the water six times. After each dip the bird raised its
bill skyward at an angle of fully eighty degrees from the horizontal.
After drinking, the bird flew to a prostrate log, and foraged
horizontally along its lower curvature.”
Some observers seem to think that the white-headed woodpecker rarely,
if ever, drums on tree trunks, but seeks its food more quietly; but
Alexander Sprunt, Jr., tells me that the birds he saw in Oregon
“drummed and beat upon the tree trunks and telephone poles at the
roadside, exactly as any other woodpecker.” Clarence F. Smith writes to
me that “one male bird was a regular overnight guest, hanging to the
ridgepole of our cabin, outside the wall, just beneath the eaves. He
never made any attempt to drill the wood there.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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