Life histories of North American woodpeckersBent, Arthur Cleveland
Science
Life histories of North American woodpeckers
Bent, Arthur Cleveland
Birds -- North America; Woodpeckers -- North America
Major Bendire (1895) says:
I obtained my first set of eggs of this species on June 3,
1883, about 9 miles north of Fort Klamath, in the open pine
forest on the road to Crater Lake. It consisted of five
eggs, slightly incubated. The nesting site was excavated
in a partly decayed pine whose entire top for some 20 feet
was dead; the height of the excavation from the ground was
about 50 feet. The man climbing the tree reported it to be
about 8 inches deep and about 5 inches wide at the bottom,
and freshly made. A second set, of six fresh eggs, was
taken June 12 of the same year, about 12 miles north of
the Post, at a still higher altitude than the first one.
It came also out of a pine about 40 feet from the ground.
A third nest, found a week later, near the same place,
contained five young, just hatched. This nest was in a
dead aspen, about 20 feet from the ground. Only one brood
is raised, and, like the other two species, it is only a
summer resident in the vicinity of Fort Klamath.
Other observers have found nests in lodgepole pines, red firs, and
larches at various heights from 5 to 60 feet above ground but always in
conifer associations.
_Eggs._--Bendire (1895) says: “The number of eggs laid to a set varies
from three to seven, sets of five or six being most often found. These,
like all woodpecker’s eggs, are pure china-white in color; the shell
is close grained, rather thin, and only slightly glossy. In shape
they vary from ovate to elongate ovate, and a few approach an ovate
pyriform, a shape apparently not found in the eggs of other species
of this genus.” The measurements of 30 eggs average 23.54 by 17.23
millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure =25.91= by
17.27, 24.1 by =18.3=, and =20.1= by =15.4= millimeters.
_Young._--Both parents assist in the duties of incubation, but
the length of time required for this function does not seem to be
definitely known; both sexes also help in feeding the young. Dr. J.
C. Merrill (1888) says, of two nests that he watched for some time:
“The males brought food about twice as often as did the females, and
frequently removed the excrement of the young on leaving the nest,
alighting on the nearest tree for a moment to drop it and to clean
their bills; I did not see either of the females remove any excreta.
About four feet above one of the holes was another occupied by a pair
of pigmy nuthatches, but neither species paid any attention to the
other when they happened to arrive with food at the same time.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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