SAN PEDRO FLICKER
HABITS
Under the above name, Dr. Joseph Grinnell (1927b) has separated and described the red-shafted flicker of the Sierra San Pedro Martir region of northern Baja California. He describes it as follows:
Similar in general characters to Colaptes cafer collaris Vigors (topotypes from Monterey, California), but averaging slightly smaller, bill more attenuated (especially more compressed in terminal half), and tone of ground color on head and on upper and lower surfaces in fresh plumage much more gray (rather than brown or vinaceous). * * *
The relative depth and clearness of the gray on the throat and sides of head and neck in martirensis is a nearly constant character, as is also the deep fuscous (of Ridgway, Color Standards and Color Nomenclature, 1912, pl. XLVI) tone of the back and of the top of the head, in fresh, new plumage: on the sides of the body, and on the chest surrounding the big black bar, there is little hint of the bright vinaceous tinting that characterizes collaris from throughout upper California. Weathering of the plumage toward spring tends to rob martirensis of its most characteristic color tones, especially on the top of the head which then becomes warmer brown, but not, however, to the degree of brightness seen in rufipileus. The latter is even browner than collaris.
He gives, as its range: “Sierra San Pedro Martir (San José, 2,500 feet, near La Grulla at 7,200 feet, and near Vallecitos at 7,500 feet) and Sierra Juárez (Laguna Hanson, 5,200 feet).” Elsewhere (1928b), he calls it a “common resident on the western slopes of the Sierra Juárez and Sierra San Pedro Martír; in winter invading westwardly to the seacoast. Breeds in Upper Sonoran and Transition zones.”
Its habits are probably similar to those of the species elsewhere.
Griffing Bancroft has sent me the measurements of a set of eight eggs, which average 26.87 by 22.16 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 28.2 by 22.0, 26.8 by 22.8, and 26.2 by 20.7 millimeters.