Life histories of North American woodpeckers

by Arthur Cleveland Bent

Until the young are about eleven days old, they lie in a circle in the nest, their long necks stretched over each other, then for nearly a week they press against the side of the nest. At seventeen or eighteen days of age, their claws having acquired a needlelike sharpness, they begin to cling to the wall of the nest, and when three weeks old they are able to climb to the hole and be fed while the parent hangs outside.

Although the eyes of the nestlings are not open until they are ten days old yet these organs are by no means dormant. An easy proof of this is made by placing the hand noiselessly over the entrance hole when they are no more than three or four days old, and are lying apparently asleep; up comes every head and they beg for food, getting none they soon sleep, when the experiment may be repeated, gaining from the young the same response that is given when a parent darkens the hole.

That cry of the young which is so often described as a hissing sound, begins very soon after they are hatched. At first exceedingly faint it soon grows stronger, and is uttered day and night for two weeks. A parent upon taking its place to brood these wailing nestlings begins to croon a lullaby and continues this musical murmur until it falls asleep, which is often quite soon. It has no effect in lessening the noise of the youngsters, yet the parent faithfully renders its cradle song until the young cease to make this noise which is about the time they begin to show fear. Of other cries that they make, there is the chuckling noise uttered when the little one is in the act of seizing the food-bearing bill, and there is a cry that sounds like a whine. Still another one is a note of alarm given when the young are disturbed by some such thing as the opening of the trap door. This uttered in unison has a very theatrical effect strongly suggesting the chorus of the stage. After they have commenced to move about freely in the nest they make much of the time a pleasant sound like a chatter or quack, as if talking to each other. And lastly comes the grown-up Flicker “pe-ap”, which they begin to call as soon as they climb to the hole. * * *

Some broods are much more quarrelsome than others. Their battle ground is in the vicinity of the hole. The one in possession of the hole maintains his supremacy there by occasional withdrawals of his head from the hole in order to deliver vigorous blows on the heads of all within his reach. This is the case with the stronger ones, the weaker ones frequently are driven from the vantage place. When the hole is large enough for two to thrust out their heads together, they draw within after the serving of a meal and fight furiously, while a waiting third may slip up and gain the coveted hole. But all their fighting days seem to be confined to a few in the fourth week of their lives.

* * * In very early life a meal is served to baby Flicker with many insertions of the parent’s bill, as many as thirty-four have been counted, but from eight to twenty are the ordinary number, decreasing to three or four before the young leave the nest. A record made during a continuous watch of six hours and thirty-two minutes shows that each parent fed five times; that the father delivered his supply with eighty-two insertions of the bill, while the mother used but forty-one. Probably the father brought more food since on every count he proved himself the more devoted parent. In grasping the bill the point of the youngster’s bill is at right angles with that of the parent’s, thus the opening between the food-bearing mandibles is covered after the young have attained a few days of age, and any over-dropping of food is prevented. This accident frequently happens in the early days of the nest, then the mussed up ants that fall are carefully picked up by the frugal parent when the feeding is over. * * *

Experiments show that to a nestling weighing 743 grains was given a breakfast that weighed 76 grains, to one weighing 1,430 grains a dinner of 118 grains, and to another that tipped the scales at 1,530 grains a supper of 103 grains. Probably the weight of the average load is not far from one hundred grains. * * *

When the young were eighteen days old during a watch of four and one-half hours twenty-five meals were given to five nestlings that wore distinguished marks. Three of these are positively known to have received five meals apiece, and two received four apiece. * * * At this age the young Flickers every hour partake of food to the amount of one-sixteenth of their own weight, or in one day consume their full weight of food.

She says that flickers are very solicitous to keep a clean nest; for the first nine or ten days the parents eat the excrements, but after that the dejecta are carried out in the tough white sacks in which they are enclosed. If no sacks of excrement are found in the nest after feeding, the parent solicits them; “this is done by biting the heel joints sometimes, but more often the fleshy protuberance that bears that budding promise of the tail.”

She says that the male “staid with the young every night until they were three weeks old, brooding all of them until nearly two weeks of age, when they began pressing their breasts against the side of the nest, and he could cover the tails of two or three only, after which for two or three nights he sat upon the bottom of the nest apart from the young; then for four nights he hung upon the wall of the nest near the hole; thereafter he staid with them no more.”

Her records show that the young remained in the nest nearly or quite four weeks, or from 25 to 28 days. During the last three or four days nearly all of them lost weight; this may have been due to the period of the heaviest feather growth, or because the parents may have let up on the feeding to induce the young to leave the nest. Miss Sherman’s statements, as to the period of incubation and the length of time that the young remain in the nest, are quite at variance with statements made by others, but her observations were so carefully and thoroughly made under such favorable circumstances that they are more convincing than less accurate observations of others.