Winter.—Aside from the regular migratory movements, the hairy woodpecker is much more given to wandering about in winter. It is apt to forsake its woodland haunts and travel about in search of food, coming frequently into the farmer’s orchard, into rural villages, and even into thickly settled communities in some of our larger cities. Here it often joins the merry parties at our winter feeding stations, feeding readily on the suet or scraps of meat provided for our insect-eating birds; and here the smaller birds show due respect for its larger size, or perhaps for its formidable beak, and it is usually allowed to eat alone. It seems to be a solitary bird at this season, for we seldom see more than one at a time. I find it not so constant and regular a visitor to my feeding station as the downy woodpecker and some other birds; it probably wanders about more.

Mr. Forbush (1927) writes: “During the inclement season it is said to require a sheltered place in which to sleep and, like the downy woodpecker, to excavate a hole in a tree for a sleeping chamber, but there is evidence that it does not always seek such shelter, as the late Charles E. Bailey and myself watched one for several winter evenings in a grove, clinging upright against a tree trunk in the usual woodpecker position. Night after night, the bird was there at dusk, remained there until dark, and was there also at daybreak each morning in precisely the same place.”

Joseph J. Hickey tells me that, around the lower Hudson River Valley in winter, woodpeckers obtain much of their food by deliberately scaling the bark off trees in search for their insect food. The Arctic three-toed woodpeckers work mainly on pines and hemlocks, but the hairies appear to confine their work to the hemlocks, using the same methods as the three-toed.

DISTRIBUTION

Range.—Northern and Central America; not regularly migratory.

The range of the hairy woodpecker extends north to Alaska (Kenai Peninsula, Fairbanks, and Fort Egbert); Yukon (Forty Mile, Fort Reliance, and Macmillan River); Mackenzie (Fort Wrigley, Lake Hardisty, and Fort Resolution); northern Saskatchewan (mouth of the Charlot River and Poplar Point); northern Manitoba (Grand Rapids, probably Fort Churchill, and probably York Factory); Ontario (Hat Island and Cobalt); Quebec (Blue Sea Lake, Quebec City, Godbout, Eskimo Bay, and Anticosti Island); and Newfoundland (Nicholsville and Raleigh). From this point the range extends southward along the Atlantic coast to southern Florida (Eau Gallie); the western Bahama Islands (Great Bahama, Abaco, and Andros); and Panama (Boquete). The southern boundary of the range extends westward from Panama (Boquete); Nicaragua (San Rafael); western Guatemala (Tecpam); Chiapas (San Cristobal); to Guerrero (Chilpancingo and Omilteme). From this point, northward through the mountains of western Mexico, northern Baja California (Sierra San Pedro Martir and Sierra Juarez); and the coastal districts of California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia, to Alaska (Chilkoot, Chitina Moraine, and the Kenai Peninsula).

As outlined, the range is for the entire species, which has, however, been so divided that no less than 13 subspecies are currently recognized as occupying the range north of Mexico, while still others occur in Central American countries. The typical eastern hairy woodpecker (D. v. villosus), occurs in the Eastern United States and southern Canada west to Manitoba, North Dakota, and Colorado and south to North Caralina and central Texas. The northern hairy woodpecker (D. v. septentrionalis) occupies the zone to the north, from southeastern Quebec, northwestward to western Mackenzie, Yukon, and central Alaska. The Newfoundland woodpecker (D. v. terraenovae) is found only on the island of that name. The southern hairy woodpecker (D. v. auduboni) occupies the southeastern part of the range from Missouri, Illinois, and western Virginia south to southeastern Texas and southern Florida. The Sitka hairy woodpecker (D. v. sitkensis) is found in southeastern Alaska and northern British Columbia. The Queen Charlotte woodpecker (D. v. picoideus) is found only on the group of islands of that name off the coast of British Columbia. Harris’s woodpecker (D. v. harrisi) occupies the coastal regions of southern British Columbia south to northwestern California. Cabanis’s woodpecker (D. v. hyloscopus) is confined to certain coastal and mountain areas of California, chiefly in the southern part. The Lower California hairy woodpecker (D. v. scrippsae) is restricted to the Sierra Juarez and the Sierra San Pedro Martir of Baja California. The Modoc woodpecker (D. v. orius) is found in the Sierra Nevada of central California north to Oregon and Washington and east to Nevada. The Rocky Mountain hairy woodpecker (D. v. monticola) is found through the Rocky Mountain region from central British Columbia south to northern New Mexico and east (in winter) to western South Dakota and Nebraska. The white-breasted woodpecker (D. v. leucothorectis) is found chiefly in Arizona and New Mexico but also east to central Texas and north to southern Utah. The Chihuahua woodpecker (D. v. icastus) occurs principally in western Mexico but occurs also in southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico.

Migration.—As stated above, the hairy woodpeckers are generally nonmigratory and may be found in midwinter even in the northern parts of their range, as Alaska, Mackenzie (Fort Simpson), and Manitoba (Aweme, Minnedosa, and Roseau River). Nevertheless, some individuals are given to a certain amount of wandering during the winter months, which explains the occasional records of some subspecies far outside of their normal range. There also is more or less vertical migration in the mountainous regions of the north and west, the birds descending into the lower valleys during the winter season. This is noted particularly in the Rocky Mountain form, which in winter has been taken east to Nebraska and South Dakota.

Despite the fact that during the past 18 years several hundred individuals of this species have been marked with numbered bands, and many have been subsequently recaptured, there is no evidence that any of these moved at any time more than a few miles from the point of banding.