MODOC WOODPECKER
HABITS
This race of the hairy woodpecker occupies a rather extensive range in the interior of California, Oregon, and Washington, west of the range of monticola in the Rocky Mountains, north of the range of hyloscopus in southern California, and east of the range of harrisi in the above States. As might be expected, it is more or less intermediate in size or coloration between the surrounding races. Dr. H. C. Oberholser (1911a), who described and named it, characterized it as “resembling Dryobates villosus leucothorectis, but larger; lower parts usually brownish white, instead of pure white.”
Grinnell and Storer (1924) say of its haunts in the Yosemite region: “As with most of the allied forms, the present race ranges through several life zones, from the scattered digger pines at Pleasant Valley eastward through the main forest belt to the sparse tracts of Jeffrey pines in the vicinity of Mono Lake. It is nowhere really common, even for a woodpecker; it reaches its greatest numbers in the upper part of the Transition Zone and in the Canadian Zone.”
In the Lassen Peak region, according to Grinnell, Dixon, and Linsdale (1930), “this woodpecker foraged over the trunks and larger limbs of many kinds of trees both in the forests proper and where there were a few trees or restricted tracts of trees in the mainly unforested parts of the section. Much of each bird’s time was spent on coniferous trees, either living or dead ones, but nesting excavations were many of them in trunks of deciduous trees.”
Bendire (1895) says that, at Fort Klamath, Oreg., “it appears to be especially abundant in tracts in which the timber has been killed by fire, and where many of the slowly rotting trunks still remain standing. Such burnings are frequently met with in the mountains, and seem to attract several species of Woodpeckers, presumably on account of the abundance of suitable food to be found.”
Courtship.—Grinnell and Storer (1924) say: “At Chinquapin, on May 19, 1919, a pair of these woodpeckers was seen going through their courting antics. A male was in a large yellow pine at the edge of a logged-over area, calling almost incessantly. His usual speenk had become spenk-ter-ter-ter, a staccato run repeated every few seconds. The female answered in like voice but uttered the trill less often. The male changed his location many times, and after protracted calling on his part, the female flew to the same tree.”
Nesting.—Bendire (1895) writes:
I took my first nest near Camp Harney, Oregon, on May 29, 1875, in a canyon on the southern slopes of the Blue Mountains, at an altitude of about 5,000 feet. The cavity was excavated in the main trunk of a nearly dead aspen, about 12 feet from the ground. The entrance hole was about 1¾ inches in diameter, and the cavity about 9 inches deep. It contained four much incubated eggs. The female was in the hole, and stayed there looking out until I had struck the tree several times with a hatchet, when she flew off and alighted on one of the limbs of the tree, uttering cries of distress, which brought the male, who was still more demonstrative, hopping from limb to limb, squealing and scolding at me and pecking at the limbs on which he perched. At Fort Klamath, Oregon, it was somewhat more common, and here I took several of its nests. * * * Dead or badly decayed trees are preferred to live ones for nesting purposes, and deciduous trees to conifers; it also nests occasionally in firs and madrone trees.
Milton P. Skinner says, in his notes, that “in the Yosemite National Park, one nested in a living willow trunk about ten feet above the ground.” Grinnell, Dixon, and Linsdale (1930) say that, in the Lassen Peak region, “aspens and cottonwoods, dead at core, seemed to be preferred nesting trees, although other kinds were also used. Nest holes, when in conifers, were made in dead and decaying trunks or stubs.”
Eggs.—Three or four eggs make up the usual set for this woodpecker. They are indistinguishable from the eggs of other hairy woodpeckers, though Bendire (1895) says that “those of an elliptical ovate shape are more common than the oval and elliptical ovals.” The measurements of 15 eggs average 24.70 by 18.80 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 26.4 by 20.6 and 21.5 by 16.2 millimeters.
Young.—Grinnell, Dixon, and Linsdale (1930) write: “Near Eagle Lake Resort on June 12, 1929, an adult was feeding a nestful of young woodpeckers in a cavity three meters up in a yellow-pine stub close to the lake. The nest hole had been freshly cut. Only the female was seen to carry food. The young were large enough to be fed without the parent entirely entering the cavity. When the observer walked near the nest stub the parent became much excited and flew about calling loudly for several minutes. The young birds called when the parent came with food.”
Food.—Grinnell and Storer (1924) say:
The Modoc Woodpecker forages on both evergreen and deciduous trees, favoring the latter, perhaps, during the winter months. In summer it is usually rather quiet, particularly so as compared with the noisy California Woodpecker. It gains much of its food in the outer portions of the bark, where a few strokes of moderate intensity enable it to secure any insect or grub living near the surface of the tree.
At the margin of the forest above Coulterville, May 31, 1915, a Modoc Woodpecker was seen foraging in a yellow pine. The tree in question had recently been killed by the boring beetles which were common in the western forests that year. The woodpecker was going over the tree in systematic manner, working out and in along one branch, then ascending the trunk to the next branch where it would repeat the performance. The bird was flaking off the outer layers of the bark without much evident expenditure of effort, for little noise of tapping was heard; it was feeding presumably on the boring beetles or their larvae.
Bendire (1895) writes: “It is one of our most active Woodpeckers, always busy searching for food, which consists principally of injurious larvæ and eggs of insects, varied occasionally with a diet of small berries and seeds, and in winter sometimes of piñon nuts, pine seeds, and acorns. At this season I have often seen this species around slaughter houses, picking up stray bits of meat or fat, and have also seen it pecking at haunches of venison hung up in the open air.”
Behavior.—Mr. Skinner says, in his notes, that “the Modoc hairy seems very unsociable. One that was feeding on a cottonwood chased a visiting red-breasted sapsucker away from that tree to another, and then from tree to tree. But, when a California woodpecker came to its tree, the Modoc hairy promptly flew away.”
Voice.—Major Bendire (1895) says that this woodpecker “is very noisy, especially in the early spring. It likewise is a great drummer, and utters a variety of notes, some of which sound like ‘kick-kick, whitoo, whitoo, whit-whit, wi-wi-wi-wi,’ and a hoarse guttural one, somewhat like ‘kheak-kheak’ or ‘khack-khack’.”