Arthur T. Wayne (1910) says that in South Carolina “the nest is very hard to find; indeed I have found but six nests, two which contained eggs, and four which contained young. I have known this species to excavate a hole and raise a brood in a limb of a living live oak tree, but it generally excavates its hole in a dead tree and at a great height. A set of three fresh eggs was taken April 7, 1898, from a hole 40 feet from the ground in a dead pine. This hole was 14 inches deep. The young remain in the hole for more than a month after they are hatched.”
Harold H. Bailey (1913) says that in Virginia “dead stubs of gum and poplar treetops seem to be their favorite location for a nesting site, varying from 25 to 60 feet up, the cavity from eight to twelve inches deep. They are one of our earliest breeding birds, the drilling of the nesting cavity beginning the last week in March, and by April 10th to 15th finds a full complement or set of eggs, numbering from four to six.”
J. G. Suthard writes to me of a nest he found near Madisonville, Ky. The cavity was “excavated in a dead crab apple stub in open woodland. Only the female was observed excavating the hole and caring for the eggs, which proved to be infertile. No male was ever observed near the nesting stub, though it was carefully observed.” M. G. Vaiden tells me of a nest 9 feet up in a chinaberry tree in a yard at Rosedale, Miss., and another that was 23 feet up in a pecan tree and 3 feet out in a dead snag.
Eggs.—The southern hairy woodpecker is said to lay three to six eggs. The latter number must be unusual, as the set generally consists of three or four eggs. The eggs are scarcely distinguishable from those of other hairy woodpeckers, though they average somewhat smaller than those of the more northern races. The measurements of 42 eggs average 21.29 by 18.29 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 26.1 by 19.2, 25.8 by 19.8, 21 by 19, and 23.8 by 16.6 millimeters.
Food.—Major Bendire (1895) says that this subspecies seems to be fonder of fruit and berries than are the northern races and that “the young are fed largely on figs.” Audubon (1842) says that in the salt marshes about the mouths of the Mississippi “it alights against the stalks of the largest and tallest reeds, and perforates them as it is wont to bore into trees. * * * I have often observed it clinging to the stalks of the sugar-cane, boring them, and apparently greatly enjoying the sweet juices of that plant; and when I have seen it, in severe winter weather, attempting to bore the dried stalks of maize, I have thought it expected to find in them something equally pleasing to its taste.”
Milton P. Skinner (1928) says of these birds, in the sandhills of North Carolina: “In winter the hairy woodpeckers vary their diet of insects with various berries and dried wild fruits. They are particularly fond of the small black berries of the sour gum (Nyssa sylvatica). Soon after the early frosts the birds flock to these swamp trees and feast as long as the berries last.”
The main food supply of this and other woodpeckers consists of insects and their larvae, which are obtained by searching in the crevices in the bark of whatever trees are available, or drilling into the trunks and branches to find the grubs. Mr. Skinner (1928) saw one working on “a charred and dead stub of a shrub oak. Here it worked steadily for fifteen minutes pulling out small white grubs and borers. It drove its bill for three or four strokes up under a bit of bark and then pried the bark off with its bill as a lever. Then it attacked the semi-rotten wood so uncovered, directly. It did not seem to work so fast as a downy woodpecker, but then it was so busy eating grubs that it did not have to dig much.”
Behavior.—The same observer says:
They do not show a preference for any one kind of tree but are found on both living and dead shrub oaks, long-leafed pines, loblolly pine, sycamore, sour gum and sweet gum. They work on both trunks and limbs but usually at low heights, from the ground up to twenty feet above. On a vertical surface these birds work up, spiraling it and tapping it as they go. They move by a series of short hops, propping themselves each time with their tails. When hopping lightly along a horizontal limb they still use their tails as props. Perhaps their most astonishing feat is to spiral horizontal limbs, and to cling beneath them and hammer them with their backs down. Sometimes they work their way up to the very tip of slender shoots.
Even in a heavy wind they cling to the violently swaying twigs while eating, but they stay only a short time before flying to a tree trunk to perch and rest before trying it again. * * *