Hoyes Lloyd (1932) wrote:
One of the most delightful bird adventures we have had at Rockcliffe Park [near the City of Ottawa] was the visit to us of a pileated woodpecker. It first came at 4:30 p. m., on October 12, 1928, and excavated a hole in a hollow basswood for sleeping quarters * * *. The chips, from live wood, were up to three inches by two inches in area, and an eighth of an inch thick. Each chip had two or three gouge-like beak marks across its surface. At 4:50 p. m. on the next day the pileated came home, and although we were all outdoors, it went directly to its own tree and after a brief survey of affairs in the vicinity, retired. The approach was silent except, possibly for a single Flicker-like note in the distance. About 9 a. m., on the 14th, our bird woke me up with a loud kuk-kuk-kuk call and it looked very large as it climbed up the home basswood. Promptly at quarter to five it came home, undoubtedly after a day among the big hardwoods of the neighborhood. We were all impressed by its great length of neck, as it swung its head with a curious bobbing motion, that was used, without doubt, to give a view on each side of the home tree, before going into the hole for the night. A pileated, thought to be the same bird, came back on March 22, 1929, possibly, or certainly on the 23rd, and slept in its winter home.
Prof. Brooks writes (MS.): “At French Creek [Upshur County, W. Va.], two birds used a nesting cavity as a roosting place during the following winter.”
CEOPHLOEUS PILEATUS FLORIDANUS (Ridgway)
FLORIDA PILEATED WOODPECKER
HABITS
This is the race that is supposed to inhabit central and southern Florida, as far north as Orange County, but there seems to be some doubt as to the desirability of naming it. Ridgway (1914) describes it as “similar to P. p. pileatus, but decidedly blacker (that is, the general black color less slaty or sooty), and average size less, with bill usually relatively shorter and broader.” But he admits his doubt, in a footnote, saying:
I have found it very difficult to decide as to the propriety of separating a form of this species from central and southern Florida, but after having several times laid out and carefully compared the entire series of specimens from more southern localities, have come to the conclusion that to do so will, apparently, best express the facts of the case. Going by size alone, there is little difference between specimens from southern and central Florida and those from localities as far northward as Maryland (lowlands), southern Illinois, and Missouri; in fact some of these more northern specimens are quite as small as Florida ones. But the series from central and southern Florida are uniformly decidedly blacker than the rest. * * * I have restricted the name pileatus to an intermediate form, characterized by the small size of P. p. floridanus combined with an appreciably lighter (more slaty or sooty) coloration, often approaching closely the lightness of hue of P. p. abieticola.
Bangs (1898), in separating the northern race from the southern, says that “southern South Carolina must be considered the type locality of the species, and birds from this region are as extreme of the southern race as those from Florida.” Furthermore, Arthur H. Howell (1932) observes that “careful study of a large series from Florida in comparison with a series of typical pileatus from the Middle States shows no constant difference in color, as claimed by Ridgway for the subspecies ‘floridanus’; evidently specimens kept for some years become more brownish (less sooty), which fact probably explains Ridgway’s mistake, he having compared fresh Florida skins with older skins from the Middle States.” Probably, also, if specimens from the two regions in similar seasonal plumage were compared, there would not be so much difference in coloration as Ridgway claims. Even if Ridgway is correct in his diagnosis, it would seem unwise, in the author’s opinion, to recognize the Florida race and thus establish an intermediate race, where the gradation in both size and color warrants the naming of only the two extremes.
Mr. Howell (1932) says of its haunts: “The pileated woodpecker in Florida inhabits several different types of country—pine woods, cypress swamps, hardwood swamps, and hammocks of cabbage palmetto and other trees. The birds are perhaps most numerous in hammocks or swamps, where there is an abundance of decaying trees.”