Nesting.—Mr. Howell (1932) writes: “We found a number of pairs breeding in cypress trees along the borders of Lake Istokpoga. The nests are excavated either in living trees or in rotten stubs, from 12 to 75 feet from the ground. The trees commonly used for nesting sites are cypress, pine, black gum, oak, and cabbage palmetto.” While collecting in the Florida Keys in 1908, I found a pair of pileated woodpeckers nesting on Murrays Key on April 3 and surprised one of the birds working in its nesting hole; the excavation was about 12 feet from the ground in the main trunk of a live black mangrove, which stood in the inner fringe of mangroves around the borders of the island. I climbed up to it and reached into the cavity but could not touch the bottom of it; we were unable to visit the island again.
Major Bendire (1895) writes:
In southern Florida the mating season commences early in March, and farther north correspondingly later. A suitable tree having been selected, generally a dead one in large and extensive woods, both birds work alternately on the nesting site. This is usually excavated in the main trunk, from 12 to 75 feet from the ground, and it takes from seven to twelve days to complete it. The entrance measures from 3 to 3½ inches in diameter, and it often goes 5 inches straight into the trunk before it is worked downward. The cavity varies from 7 to 30 inches in depth, and is gradually enlarged toward the bottom, where it is about 6 inches wide. A layer of chips is left at the bottom, on which the eggs are deposited. Occasionally the entrance hole, instead of being circular, is oval in shape, like that of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. The inside of the cavity is quite smooth, the edges of the entrance are nicely beveled, and, taken as a whole, it is quite an artistic piece of work.
Dr. William L. Ralph told Bendire of a clever trick practiced by this woodpecker; he found a nest “in the second week in April, about the time nidification is at its height there. On rapping on the trunk of the tree the bird, which was at home, stuck his head out of the hole and dropped some chips, naturally causing the Doctor to believe that the nesting site was still unfinished. The same performance was repeated on several subsequent visits, and finally he concluded to examine the nest anyhow, when he found nearly full-grown young. This pair of birds must have had eggs at the time he first discovered the nest, and the chips were simply thrown out as a ruse to deceive him.”
Eggs.—This woodpecker lays, ordinarily, three or four eggs, rarely five. These are indistinguishable from those of the species from other southern States. The measurements of 22 eggs average 33.61 by 24.75 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 36.2 by 24.5, 35.70 by 26.19, 31.5 by 24.0, and 34.2 by 22.8 millimeters.
Food.—Mr. Howell (1932) states that “this large woodpecker is a decidedly useful species. It never injures farm crops, but feeds entirely in the forests, rendering good service there in the destruction of wood-boring beetles. It eats, also, ants and wild fruits and berries, including the fruit of the sour gum, tupelo gum, dogwood, persimmon, frost grape, holly, poison ivy, sumac, and hackberry.” C. J. Maynard (1896) says that they “are partial to the berries of the palmetto, feeding, in Florida, upon little else when these are in season.”
CEOPHLOEUS PILEATUS PICINUS (Bangs)
WESTERN PILEATED WOODPECKER
HABITS
In describing and naming this large, dark-colored race from the Northwest coast region, Outram Bangs (1910) says that it is “as large as, or even larger than, P. pileatus abieticola (Bangs), but color sooty black as in P. pileatus pileatus (Linn.), the throat usually much marked with sooty, and the sides and flanks but slightly marked with grayish.”