Life histories of North American woodpeckersBent, Arthur Cleveland
Science
Life histories of North American woodpeckers
Bent, Arthur Cleveland
Birds -- North America; Woodpeckers -- North America
S. F. Rathbun sends me the following note on a Harris’s woodpecker that
made an attempt to dig a nesting hole in a small young fir topped about
10 feet up: “The tree had been cut off so that it could be used as one
of the supports of a cross piece to which a swing was attached. The
woodpecker began to dig a hole in the topped upright, and the owner of
the place called me up and wanted to know what the bird was and what
it was up to. I told him all about it and suggested that he keep away
from the stub. Two weeks later, I asked him how the bird was getting
on. He said at first the bird was busy digging away every day, but of
late seemed to have something the matter with it, for ‘lately every
day it just sat with its head sticking out of the hole and did no work
on it.’ I cut a piece from the edge of the entrance and quickly found
out. When the crossbar for the swing had been nailed to the sapling,
a 10-inch spike was used to hold it; and this had gone nearly through
the sapling. The woodpecker ran into this spike, as it was digging the
hole, after progressing 6 inches or so downward. It did not seem able
to go around the spike, although it had enlarged the cavity an inch on
each side of the heavy nail and had cut away the wood for 2 inches or
more below the spike. But the job proved to be too much for the bird,
and it eventually gave up and disappeared. I told my friend to pull
the spike and maybe next year the bird would be back. He followed my
suggestion, and, the following spring, a Harris’s woodpecker showed up,
dug a hole in the stub, and raised its young. This was repeated the
next spring after, and then no return of the bird. So quite likely it
may have been the same woodpecker.”
_Eggs._--Harris’s woodpecker apparently lays four or five eggs,
probably seldom fewer or more. Bendire (1895) was evidently unable to
locate any properly identified eggs of this race, and I have not fared
much better. The eggs are probably indistinguishable from the eggs of
other hairy woodpeckers of similar size. The measurements of 34 eggs
average 25.29 by 18.91 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes
measure =27.9= by 19.6, 25.46 by =20.32=, =22.86= by 18.29, and 23.5 by
=17.5= millimeters.
_Food._--J. A. Neff (1928) says:
A total of 57 stomachs of hairy woodpeckers were taken for
the present study, over three fourths of them of the Harris
type. The months were represented by fairly even numbers of
specimens. Analysis of these stomachs shows a considerable
variation from the results of Professor Beal’s California
studies. The total animal food averaged 82.00 percent,
while vegetable matter made up the other 18.00 percent.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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