Life histories of North American woodpeckersBent, Arthur Cleveland
Science
Life histories of North American woodpeckers
Bent, Arthur Cleveland
Birds -- North America; Woodpeckers -- North America
Cornelius Weygandt (1912) described from Monroe County, Pa., the
appearance of “the Logcock that in late July and early August made the
sunset hour more memorable by its passing”:
It was on the evening of July 26 that we first saw him
* * * we noticed a large bird flying heron-like toward
us. He passed us and made his way onward toward a tall
broken-topped gum tree that stood out black against the
sunset. He “landed” on its side near the top, woodpecker
fashion, and bobbed downtrunk backwards for several yards.
The sky was mauve and gold and crimson, and the great
bird loomed blacker and bigger than he really was, limned
sharply against it. He had not dropped along like the
smaller woodpeckers, but had kept on more steadily, very
like a heron, with only slight risings and fallings. After
a rest on the gum tree of some three minutes he flung
himself into the air and dove down into the Buck Hill Gorge.
Vickers (1915) characterizes the bird’s flight as “powerful and
straight-forward, his head and neck carrying his powerful beak like
a spear * * * [the bird] large as a crow and with a certain short,
sturdy, kingfisherlike aspect.”
In general conclusion it may be said that the pileated woodpecker has
the habit and manner of a giant, forest-loving flicker.
_Voice._--Throughout the greater part of the year the pileated
woodpecker is a relatively silent bird, but during the nesting season
drumming and calling are frequent. The usual call is a cackle,
resembling that of the flicker, though louder and of more sonorous
quality. The “song” of the white-breasted nuthatch so far resembles it
in pitch and tempo that a nuthatch near at hand may, for an instant,
suggest the woodpecker far away. The _ka, ka, ka_ of the woodpecker’s
cackle is variable in quality, in speed of iteration, and in
continuity, and seems to be expressive, sometimes of alarm, sometimes
of companionship, sometimes of contentment. Aretas A. Saunders (1935)
has noted that often there is rise in pitch at the beginning of a
rendition and a slight fall at the end; and Samuel Scoville, Jr.
(1920), distinguishing this from the flicker’s similar call, has
remarked on “a queer little quirk at the end.” When a pair of birds
cackle in alternation, as commonly they do, a difference in pitch will
be noted; but whether that be a constant sexual difference, or a matter
of individuality merely, I cannot say.
In the nesting season the mated birds have another flickerlike
_wuck-a-wuck_ call that seems to be peculiarly associated with their
conjugal relationship. They use it in courtship and when they relieve
one another in attendance at the nest.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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