Life histories of North American woodpeckersBent, Arthur Cleveland
Science
Life histories of North American woodpeckers
Bent, Arthur Cleveland
Birds -- North America; Woodpeckers -- North America
If the first set of eggs is taken, another set will be completed within
the next 10 or 12 days, usually in the same hole. Like the flicker,
this woodpecker is very persistent in its attempt to raise a brood and
will keep on laying, if repeatedly robbed. C. C. Bacon (1891), of Bell,
Ky., reports taking six sets of eggs, 28 eggs in all, from the same
nest in a single season, after which the birds drilled a new hole in
the same tree and raised a brood of four young; this persevering pair
drilled two holes and laid 32 eggs before they succeeded in raising a
brood.
The eggs vary in shape from short ovate to rounded ovate, are pure
white in color, and somewhat glossy when incubated. The measurements of
54 eggs average 25.14 by 19.17 millimeters; the eggs showing the four
extremes measure =27.18= by 19.30, 26.16 by =20.57=, =23= by 18.20, and
23.11 by =17.78= millimeters.
_Young._--Incubation is said to last for about 14 days. Both sexes
assist in this duty, as well as in the care of the young. As an egg
is laid each day, and, as incubation often begins before the set is
complete, the young may hatch on different days.
Mr. DuBois writes to me that one nest that he watched held newly
hatched young on June 11; they were in the nest on July 7 but had left
before 2 p. m. on the 9th, making the period in the nest approximately
27 days. He says: “The newly hatched, naked young have extremely long
necks, longer in fact than their bodies. The four young all faced
inward, each toward a point to the right of the center of the nest; and
when in repose, each neck crossed the necks of the two others at right
angles to its own--like woof and warp in a loom. A little noise on my
part made all four of them stretch their necks straight upward; but
when they collapsed, their necks became again interwoven. Each lowered
its head to its own right side of the one opposite it. There were egg
shells still in the nest.”
Julian K. Potter (1912) says of a nest that he watched at Camden, N. J.:
The old birds fed the young at varying intervals, sometimes
going to the nest once in every three or four minutes for a
half hour, then not appearing again for fifteen or twenty
minutes. * * *
The young birds left the nest about June 25. On that day
I saw them out in the open, quite able to take care of
themselves, although the parents fed them occasionally.
[This pair raised a second brood that season, and had
young on July 30.] Meanwhile the young of the first brood
were being very much misused by their parents, and were
driven away whenever they came in sight; in fact they
were persecuted to such an extent that they must have been
driven from the locality, for I was unable to find them
after July 30.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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