In a knothole on the side of the post was an eggshell (of the same kind), and a snail shell which had been broken into. Wedged into the cracks of the post were several insects (some of them still alive) of the two species commonly known as “salmon flies” and “trout flies.” On the ground at the foot of the post were several snail shells, a green prune (picked into), and several cherry seeds with stems attached.
Johnson A. Neff (1928) has much to say about the economic status of this woodpecker, mainly in Oregon. A few quotations from his paper will serve to show the vast amount of damage to the fruit grower that it does in sections where it is abundant, mainly in summer and fall. He says that Prof. Beal (1911) “mentions one case in Washington wherein the birds tore the paper at the corners of packed boxes of apples left in the orchard over night, picking into every apple within reach, and necessitating the repacking of every box attacked.”
S. D. Hill wrote to Mr. Neff:
In some sections and seasons they will destroy carloads of fruit, especially in orchards near timber. I have known them to do 50 percent damage to a pear crop in the Peyton district on upper Rogue River. Jackson Gyger, Ashland, wrote: “In 1924 the loss on Spitz and Delicious apples was about 75 percent, on Newtowns about 15 percent; Bosc and Anjou pears about 10 percent. The loss on trees near oak timber was nearly 100 percent. This season (1925) due to hunting them every day the loss was possibly 50 percent less. I bought $18.00 worth of ammunition to combat them this year. One man can not keep them out of a seven acre orchard, as they will work on one end while you are scaring them out of the other.”
Mr. Neff goes on to say:
These complaints can not be over-looked, for stomach analyses show only the volume of fruit eaten, not the percentage of fruit damaged per tree, nor the real loss to the orchardist. * * *
In Oregon, although it sometimes becomes a nuisance in the small fruit plantings of various areas, it centers its destructive activities in the Rogue Valley; there it flocks in the greatest abundance. * * *
In this area there can be no question of the objectionable status of the Lewis woodpecker. If the birds would consume each fruit injured, there would be little complaint of their taking the quantity which probably would satisfy them. They are restless and energetic, however, and always attacking fresh fruit, which with one stroke of the bill is ruined for commercial use. If one allows only one bite to each fruit, some of the stomachs studied would have contained the samples of as high as two bushels of fruit. In the restricted areas mentioned the Lewis woodpecker is a pest.
Behavior.—Lewis’s woodpecker seldom indulges in the undulating flight so common to other woodpeckers, though it sometimes swings in a long curve in a short flight from tree to tree. Its ordinary, traveling flight is quite unlike the flight of other members of the family; it is strong, direct, and rather slow, with steady strokes of its long, broad wings. At first glance one would hardly recognize it as a woodpecker, for its flight and its appearance are more suggestive of a crow, a Clarke’s nutcracker, or a jay. But it is far from clumsy in the air, and its skill in catching insects on the wing demonstrates is mastery of the air in flight. It also indulges in some rather remarkable aerial evolutions, which one would hardly expect from a member of the woodpecker family. On this subject, Robert Ridgway (1877) writes:
In its general habits and manners this beautiful species resembles quite closely the eastern Red-headed Woodpecker (M. erythrocephalus), being quite as lively and of an equally playful disposition. Some of its actions, however, are very curious, the most remarkable of them being a certain elevated flight, performed in a peculiar floating manner, its progress apparently laborious, as if struggling against the wind, or uncertain, like a bird which had lost its course and become confused. At such a time it presents the appearance of a Crow high in the air, while the manner of its flight is strikingly similar to that of Clarke’s Nutcracker (Picicorvus columbianus). * * * After performing these evolutions to its satisfaction, it descends in gradually contracting circles, often to the tree from which it started.