Life histories of North American woodpeckersBent, Arthur Cleveland
Science
Life histories of North American woodpeckers
Bent, Arthur Cleveland
Birds -- North America; Woodpeckers -- North America
_Young._--In a particular instance; which I take to be typical, of a
nesting (in northern Fulton County, Pa.) I found the male to be no less
attentive than the female to the duties of incubation and nurture. In
one respect, indeed, the male seemed to be the more attentive, for
on both of the two occasions when I had opportunity to observe--once
shortly before, the other shortly after the hatching of the eggs--it
was the male bird who at sunset retired within the hole and who at
sunrise the following morning appeared from within. And I mention this
the more confidently since I find chance confirmation in the narrative
of another observer, Morrell (1901), and since like observations have
been made upon other species of woodpeckers--upon the flicker, for
instance, and upon the ivory-billed woodpecker (Allen, 1937).
When incubation was in progress I found the parent birds to be
relieving one another at intervals of about two hours; and a week
later, when the young were still small, they were coming in with food
and replacing one another at intervals of approximately one hour. It
may have been accidental, and yet it seemed to me noteworthy, that the
routine of hourly visits was broken when the female returned after an
absence of 10 minutes to afford the male freedom for 40 minutes before
he returned to retire within the cavity for the night.
At the time when hatching was near, and afterward when the young were
newly hatched, one or the other of the parent birds was constantly
present in the nesting chamber and, the weather being warm, was much
of the time perched immediately within the hole. And I then realized
the value of the larger dimensions of the upper portion of the chamber.
The waiting bird was constantly moving about, thrusting its head out
and withdrawing it again, turning about within the chamber so that it
had free view outward, preening, reaching upward with its foot and
scratching its head. And all this movement was free because the space
was wide.
Each of the parents seemed to have its own path of approach to the
nest. One of them came almost invariably to a particular position on
the trunk, about 6 feet below and to the right, and hopped up thence to
the entrance, but the other bird followed a different course.
I was impressed, too, with the comparative silence of the birds
at their nesting tree. Such small converse as took place there (a
flicker-like _wuck-a-wuck_--and it occurred irregularly) was so soft as
to be scarcely audible to human ears at a distance of fifty yards.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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