Pileated woodpecker

“ If it occurs at all it is very rare in the Southern Rocky Mountain regions, and is also rare in Alaska.
The Pileated Woodpecker is a beautiful bird of great size and strength. Its bill is both large and powerful. In fact, it is exceeded in size by but one of the Woodpeckers—the ivory-billed species—which is a resident of the Southern States. It is quite variable in its habits. In some sections it is very shy and retiring, while in others it is quite tame and becomes quite accustomed to man if not ruthlessly annoyed. ”

“ In years gone by, when large sections of the United States were covered with deeply wooded virgin forests frequented only by denizens of the wildwood, the Pileated Woodpecker was an abundant resident through nearly all of North America. A bird citizen of the deeper and more extensive forest regions, it has gradually retreated before the advance of man, and it is a very rare visitant in the Eastern States and is only found in the thickly settled and heavily timbered bottom lands which the human intruder seldom penetrates. ”

“ For a week or two after the young have left the nest, they follow their parents begging for food with ludicrous eagerness; at this time the provender brought them consists of nuts, berries, ants, and the larvae of beetles. These, especially the nuts, are often placed in a crevice of the bark, and the youngster is compelled to pick them out. After a few trials he learns to hammer right merrily and is ready to forage for himself.
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Food.—The western pileated woodpecker lives on much the same kind of food as its eastern relative, but naturally on different species of insects and berries. ”

“ The male then comes to the fore and braving the danger, is very courageous, and, should the eggs be far advanced in incubation, he will even enter the nest when you are almost within reach of it. When the latter are rifled, he is always the first to go in and discover the fact, often passing in and out several times in a surprised sort of manner.
CEOPHLOEUS PILEATUS PILEATUS (Linnaeus) SOUTHERN PILEATED WOODPECKER HABITS
The above name is now restricted to the pileated woodpeckers of the Lower Austral forests of the Southern United States, except southern Florida, east of the Rocky Mountains. ”

“ We know of no more interesting occupation than to observe this bird. It is fond of drumming on the stub of a dead limb whose center is hollow, and whose shell is hard and resonant. Upon such places it will drum for an hour at a time, now and then stopping to listen for a response from its mate or of some rival. At all times it is unsuspicious of man, and when engaged in excavating the receptacle for its nest it continues its busy chiseling, unheeding his near approach.
The Woodpecker is wrongfully accused of boring into the sound timber, and, by letting in the water, hastening its decay. ”

“ The search over in one tree, he wastes no time in looking around, but launches out, with barely a glance to determine the course, in his undulating flight to the next, there to repeat the performance. When closely approached, he works around the tree without paying any especial attention to the intruder, and when thoroughly frightened he will take flight with as little warning as he does when simply in search of food. While going up the tree he gives, from time to time, a characteristic call, much like that of the hairy woodpecker. ”

“ In the case of the ‘ivory-billed woodpecker,’ it is not only white, and hard, and strong, but it has a ribbed surface, which tends to prevent its breaking, and even if he does not form one of this class, the woodpecker is as clever in his own line as any carpenter, and more industrious than many. The moment that he notices symptoms of decay in any tree, he flies off to make a careful examination of it, and when he has decided on the best mode of attack, he loses no time, and has even been known to strip all the bark off a dead pine tree of thirty feet long in less than twenty minutes. ”

“ Audubon (1842) asserts that as many as “a hundred have been shot upon a single cherry tree in one day. Pears, peaches, apples, figs, mulberries, and even peas, are thus attacked.”
They do considerable damage to pole lines by excavating their nests in them. An editorial in The Osprey (vol. 1, p. 147) quotes, as follows, from an article in the Kansas City Star:
The little red-headed woodpecker has become such a nuisance on the electric lines of the metropolitan street railway system, that it has become necessary to appoint an official woodpecker exterminator. ”

“ Winter in the North is all very well for the hairy and downy cousins that like to hammer frozen tree-trunks for frozen grubs; but our red-headed friend does not eat grubs by preference. Rather than change his habits he will change his boarding-place. So he is a migratory woodpecker, though the woodpeckers are naturally home-loving birds, and do not migrate from preference. If, however, he can lay up a store of vegetable or animal food, he can winter in any climate. Hoarding is thus an invention as important to the woodpecker world as electric cars and telephones are to men. ”

“ From many sections of the South where it was formerly common, the red-cockaded woodpecker has disappeared by reason of the ruthless destruction of pine forests by the lumbermen. When the large timber is cut out, the birds leave the locality and apparently do not return. However, there is still a considerable amount of pine forest suitable for its nesting that is held in private hands and not about to be destroyed. ”

“ The youngsters, especially,—awkward, saucy fellows that most of them are—sometimes get together and raise a fearful racket until some of the older ones, out-stentored, interpose.
Field marks.—The red-headed woodpecker is so conspicuously marked that it hardly could be mistaken for anything else. The large white areas in the wings and on the rump are much in evidence, in any plumage, especially in flight. The bright red of the entire head and neck and the plain white breast of the adult are also very conspicuous. ”

“ It is always much in evidence, always protesting the intrusion of a stranger, and shows the greatest concern when its nest is approached, especially if it has young. It is a close sitter and will often remain in the nest hole to peck viciously at an investigating hand; while the nest is being robbed, it flits nervously about, scolding vociferously with all the vile epithets it can muster. As to its behavior with other species, Mr. Gilman (1915) writes:
This woodpecker has not the best disposition in the world, for he is very quarrelsome and intolerant. ”

“ HIS fine specimen of the Woodpecker is by far the most sociable representative of the family in the United States, and it is no unusual occurrence to see half a dozen or more in a single tree. It is also a well disposed bird, and seldom quarrels or fights with its own kind, or with smaller birds, but it attacks intruders on its winter stores with such vigor and persistence that they are compelled to vacate the premises in a hurry. ”

“ Field marks.—The American three-toed woodpecker is the only woodpecker likely to be seen in the northern woods that has a black back transversely barred with white, white under parts banded with black on the flanks, and a black crown, with or without a yellow crown patch; the yellow patch is very prominent in the adult male and less so in the young birds of both sexes, but lacking in the adult female. In flight the “ladderback” is more conspicuous than when the bird is at rest, and the tail flashes white. ”

“ Most of our familiar woodpeckers, however, are much smaller, and their plumage is a checker of black and white. Everywhere common in town, as well as among the farmlands, are three or four species, of which the most often seen, and the smallest, is the downy woodpecker, which gets its name from the broad stripe of soft white feathers up and down the middle of its back. It is not so large as a sparrow, and haunts the woods, the farmer's orchards, the shade-trees along the rural roads or beside the streets of our villages, and often makes itself a welcome visitor to the city parks and gardens. ”

“ Behavior.—The downy woodpecker sits very still as it digs out a grub from under the bark of a tree, or from the wood under the bark, or as it dislodges a bit of bark in its hunt for a cocoon or a bundle of insects’ eggs. We hear the gentle taps of its bill, and when our eyes, led by the sound, catch sight of the bird, perched on a branch or the trunk of a tree, we understand why it has been called industrious. It is concentrated on its work; it works patiently, seriously, like a carpenter working earnestly with his chisel, spending a full minute, sometimes more, to secure a bit of food. ”

“ The young ones leave the nest before they can fly, and they may be seen exercising near it, learning to climb, to run around the trunk of their tree, and to cling to it upside down. You will be amused to watch them if you ever have the good fortune to be present at the frolics of a young family of woodpeckers.
“The great spotted woodpecker is about as large as a thrush. It has a wide red stripe across the nape of the neck, the upper part of the body is prettily spotted with pure white and deep black, and the under part is white as far as the abdomen, which is red, as is also the rump. ”

“ A number of Starlings collect on or about the tree in which the Woodpecker is, and they all in their turn mob him, and worry his life, until, tired out, he goes off in the hope of finding some other place where he can nest in safety. It is obvious that Woodpeckers are a class of birds whose habits are clearly not adapted to civilization, while woods and forests are continually decreasing in every direction; trees that show the slightest sign of decay are by the present utilitarian generation immediately felled. ”

“ During the fall and winter they may be found traveling about from place to place in pairs, and are easily located by the call note, which somewhat resembles that of the red-bellied woodpecker, the habits of the two birds being in many respects quite similar. In the spring, when nesting, they become very noisy, and when approached, utter their alarm note with great vigor. I have never known this species to drum on a dead limb, as most of the other woodpeckers do. ”

“ The bird may be described as wary rather than shy and is most adept at the familiar woodpecker trick of keeping the trunk of the tree between an approaching observer and itself.
As a rule they do not feed close to the ground, nor have I ever observed one on the ground even after the burning of a woodland, at which time the flicker and the red-bellied woodpecker may both be observed on the ground searching for grubs and insects killed by the blaze. ”

“ Often we may frighten them from the tangled vines of the frost grape and the branches of wild cherry trees, or from clumps of poison-ivy, whither they come to eat the fruit. The red-headed woodpecker is fond of sitting on fence posts and telegraph poles; and both he and the flicker frequently alight on the roofs of barns and houses and go pecking and pattering over the shingles. The sapsuckers and several other kinds will perch on dead limbs, like a flycatcher, on the watch for insects ”

“ Ralph Hoffmann (1927) says that “in the breeding season the Arctic Three-toed Woodpecker makes a very loud rolling sound by drumming on dry limbs and when concerned about the nest a shrill kick-er-uck-a-kick. The ordinary call is tschick or tschuck.” A note of greeting, possibly part of a love-making performance, is thus described by Mr. Achilles (1906) : “Several times when the female was getting grubs in the dead spruce near the hole, the male would fly from some distant tree and alight near her. ”

“ Behavior.—Most observers agree that the Arctic three-toed woodpecker is very tame and unsuspicious, working very quietly on a tree trunk for long periods, without moving about much, and allowing a close approach; perhaps, as it lives most of its life in remote northern forests, where men are scarce, it has not learned to fear human beings. ”

“ They should, on the contrary, be protected; for they destroy innumerable insects, the real enemies of timber, and never touch a sound limb, for in it their food is not to be found. There are a great number of species of Woodpeckers known, which are spread over the two continents. The principal are the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, a native of America ”

“ No better little bird comes to our orchards than our friend the downy woodpecker. He is the smallest and one of the most sociable of our woodpeckers,—a little, spotted, black-and-white fellow, precisely like his larger cousin the hairy, except in having the outer tail-feathers barred instead of plain. Nearly everything that can be said of one is equally true of the other on a smaller scale. ”

“ Enemies.—The red-headed woodpecker has some bad habits, which have at times caused considerable damage to property, arousing the enmity of those who have suffered from its depredations and resulting in the destruction of large numbers of these birds. ”

“ Therefore each bird, in order to be sure of sufficient food for itself during the cold months, must maintain dominion over a territory large enough to support it through the winter.
Thus it comes about that in autumn the downy does perforce change its habits, or rather its attitude toward other birds of its species. The families disperse, and until the next breeding season each individual becomes a solitary bird, living in a restricted region, which it defends against trespass, resenting and repelling the approach of any other downy woodpecker. ”