Life histories of North American woodpeckersBent, Arthur Cleveland
Science
Life histories of North American woodpeckers
Bent, Arthur Cleveland
Birds -- North America; Woodpeckers -- North America
Dr. Grinnell (1908) writes: “We usually located the nests by watching
the movements of the parent birds, which flew from their foraging
places, often far distant, direct to the nest tree. The young uttered
a whinnying chorus of cries when fed, and the adults, though generally
very quiet, had a not loud explosive cry, more like the distant squall
of a red-tailed hawk. The bill and throat of an adult male, shot as it
was approaching a nest, was crammed with large wood ants, not the kind,
however, that are common at lower altitudes and smell so foully.”
Charles W. Michael (1935) watched a nest containing young, in the
Yosemite region, of which he says:
When we arrived, about ten o’clock, both parent birds were
bringing food. We watched the birds for an hour and a half
and in this period of time the male made nine trips to the
nest hole and the female made seven trips. The young were
small, as the parent birds went completely into the nest
hole. The birds, male and female, always came onto the tree
trunk above the nest hole and hitched jerkily downward
until on a level with the hole. They landed anywhere
between five and fifteen feet above the hole; the female
was likely to land nearest to the hole. * * * About every
other trip excrement was carried from the nest. When the
male cleaned nest he carried the feces away and dropped
them some distance from the nest. When the female cleaned
nest she came to the entrance from within, looked about and
then dropped the refuse before leaving the nest hole.
_Plumages._--The most remarkable characteristic of this woodpecker is
the striking difference in the plumages of the two sexes at all ages,
from the first plumage of the young bird to its maturity; in most
birds the sexes are much alike in the juvenal plumage; but the young
male Williamson’s sapsucker is much like the adult male, and the young
female is much like the adult female; the principal character common to
both sexes at all ages is the white rump.
These young sapsuckers are fully fledged before they leave the nest.
The young male, in juvenal plumage in summer, differs from the adult
male in having a smaller and weaker bill and softer, more blended
plumage; the black areas, except the wings and tail, which are like
those of the adult, are dull brownish black, instead of clear glossy
black; there are usually numerous elongated white spots or streaks,
more or less concealed, on the scapulars and upper back, and often a
few small whitish spots on the crown; the chin and upper throat are
white, instead of scarlet; the center of the breast and abdomen is dull
yellowish white, instead of bright “lemon-chrome”; the sides and flanks
are barred, instead of striped or spotted, with dusky.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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