BALANOSPHYRA FORMICIVORA ACULEATA (Mearns)
MEARNS’S WOODPECKER
Plate [28]
HABITS
Along our southwestern border, from Arizona, New Mexico, and western Texas southward over northwestern Mexico to Durango, we find this race of ant-eating woodpecker. It was separated, named, and described by Dr. Edgar A. Mearns (1890a) as follows: “General size and coloring intermediate between M. formicivorus and M. formicivorus bairdi; throat less yellow than in either of them; bill shorter, more slender, and less arcuate than in either of the other forms of M. formicivorus; white striping of chest more than in the Pacific coast form, less than in formicivorus.”
He says of its haunts (1890b): “A very common resident through the pine belt, breeding plentifully. I have found it as high as the spruce forests, but never in them. It is essentially a bird of the pines, only occasionally descending to the cottonwoods of the low valleys. The oaks which are scattered through the lower pine zone supply a large share of its food.”
Henry W. Henshaw (1875) writes: “This woodpecker was first observed when we neared Camp Apache, and, so far as my own observations go, its range in Arizona is coincident with that of the oaks, the acorns of which appear to constitute a very important item in its bill of fare. We noticed it to the southward in every locality where oaks were found in sufficiently large groves to afford it at once a place of shelter and an inexhaustible source whence to draw food.”
Harry S. Swarth (1904), writing of the Huachuca Mountains, Ariz., says: “A most abundant summer resident in the lower parts of the mountains; a few winter here but they are scarce during the cold weather. I saw but two or three during February and the early part of March, about the middle of March they began to arrive in numbers, and by April 1 were most abundant. Primarily a bird of the oak woods they seldom venture into the higher parts of the mountains, breeding almost entirely below 6,000 feet.”
Courtship.—We found this woodpecker quite common on the steep slopes of the Huachuca Mountains in May 1922, especially in the vicinity of Ramsay Canyon, between 5,000 and 6,000 feet elevation. They were usually seen in the open groves of tall pines mixed with oaks. A tall dead pine seemed to be one of their favorite resorts for their courtship displays, which were both showy and noisy. They reminded me of flickers as they dodged about the branches, chasing each other and displaying their conspicuous markings.
Nesting.—I have the records of four sets of eggs, all taken in the Huachuca Mountains but in a variety of nesting sites. There are two sets in the Thayer collection; one, containing six eggs, was taken on May 10, 1897, from a hole 8 inches deep in the dead limb of a sycamore, 30 feet from the ground; the other set of five eggs was taken on June 1, 1902, from a cavity 10 inches deep in an ash stump, 20 feet from the ground. A set of three eggs, in my collection, was collected by O. W. Howard on May 31, 1901; the nest was 6 feet above ground in a dead oak stump. Frank C. Willard took a set of five eggs on May 31, 1899, from a cavity 15 inches deep, 35 feet up in a large dead pine stub.
Eggs.—Mearns’s woodpecker evidently lays three to six eggs. Major Bendire (1895) mentions a set of ten eggs, taken by F. H. Fowler, which were “evidently the product of two females.” The eggs are pure white, of course, and vary from short-ovate to rounded-ovate, with only a slight gloss. The measurements of 20 eggs average 24.07 by 18.91 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 26.8 by 17.8 (a long narrow egg), 23.9 by 20.8, and 22.4 by 19.5 millimeters.
Plumages.—Mr. Swarth (1904) writes:
About July 1 the young birds begin to make their appearance so like the adults in general appearance that it is difficult to distinguish between them. The young of both sexes usually have the entire crown red, as in the adult male, but of a duller color, more of a brick red; but one young female secured has the red area very limited and coming to a point behind, so as to form a small, triangular shaped patch on the crown. Of seventeen specimens collected in the Huachucas, three show, more or less distinctly, white markings on the outer tail feathers. In one of these, an adult female, the marks consist of indistinct white spots, mostly on the inner web. The other two, juvenile females, have the outer feathers distinctly, though irregularly, barred with white for about half their length.
Food.—The food of this woodpecker is evidently similar to that of other races of the species. Dr. Mearns (1890b) remarks: “Its habit of industriously hoarding food in the bark of pines, and in all sorts of chinks and hollows, is well known. These stores are the source of unending quarrels between this woodpecker and its numerous pilfering enemies; and I have laid its supplies under contribution myself, when short of provisions and lost from the command with which I had been traveling, by filling my saddlebags with half-dried acorns from under the loose bark of a dead pine.”
Behavior.—Mrs. Bailey (1928) says: “An odd habit of the woodpeckers was happened on by Mr. Ligon in the Black Range. At dark, on March 15, 1913, seeing a bird enter a hole about eight feet up in an oak he closed it after it, and in the morning when he returned was surprised to find six birds in the one hole. As the woodpeckers do not nest until the last of May, and then in high dead pines, it was, of course, a night roost.”
Ed. S. Steele (1926) tells the following story:
I was camping in a pine forest not many miles from Reserve, N. Mex., accompanied by a small English terrier. In front of my tent stood a large dead pine, near the top of which there were a number of holes, evidently the homes of four pairs of Ant-eating Woodpeckers (Balanosphyra formicivora aculeata). A gray tassel-eared squirrel came scampering along, and was at once spied by the dog, which gave chase. The squirrel ran up the dead tree mentioned above, to be instantly assailed by the woodpeckers. Their constant cries and their sharp bills made things so uncomfortable for the squirrel that it ran down the tree to within a few feet of the dog, who sent him scampering to the top again with his eight antagonists constantly flaying him.
About this time there was a swish of wings, and a sharp-shinned hawk (Accipiter velow) darted like a streak among the woodpeckers. For an instant it seemed that one of them was doomed, but by a small margin it managed to escape, and in an instant they had all darted to cover among the green boughs of surrounding trees. All was quiet for a few brief seconds, when the woodpeckers returned to the attack, except one which perched on the topmost bough of a near-by tree, as guard or lookout, watching for the hawk. The other seven took up the fight with the squirrel.
In a few minutes the hawk again appeared on the scene, the guard gave a shrill call of warning, and all the woodpeckers were under cover before their enemy could reach them. The hawk, then, finding the birds on their guard, left and did not return. The terrier soon abandoned the tree, and the squirrel hurried down and scampered away; the woodpeckers quickly quieted down and went peacefully about their home affairs. I believe that the birds recognized in the squirrel a danger to their eggs or young.