One afternoon I found one pecking at a hole near the ground in the trunk of an oak. It worked for a second or two and then paused long enough to look in my direction, beginning work again immediately. This was repeated several times and it seemed disinclined to leave the spot, allowing me to approach to within ten feet, when, instead of flying off, it slid around to the opposite side of the trunk while I examined the place and found the hole inhabited by numerous small black beetles which were running excitedly about. I moved off a short distance and watched the Woodpecker return to the hole which seemed to be a rich find.
She goes on to say:
On Chloride Creek in May, 1916, when Mr. Ligon was standing by a half dead box elder containing a woodpecker nest, the mother came with her bill for half its length jammed full of wood ants for the squawking young inside the hole. One that Mr. Kellogg took at Silver City had recently eaten two woodboring larvae, six caterpillars, and at least ten moth pupae, besides other insects and mast.
DRYOBATES PUBESCENS PUBESCENS (Linnaeus)
SOUTHERN DOWNY WOODPECKER
HABITS
Because the Linnaean name Picus pubescens was based on Catesby’s smallest spotted woodpecker, of South Carolina, the southern bird becomes the type race of the species, and the above scientific name, which for many years was used for the more northern bird, is now restricted to the downy woodpeckers of the Lower Austral Zone of the South Atlantic and Gulf States, from North Carolina to eastern Texas. William Brewster (1897) has given us a full review of the changes that have taken place in the nomenclature of the downy woodpeckers of eastern North America, to which the reader is referred.
The southern downy woodpecker, D. p. pubescens, is smaller, from the more southern parts of its range decidedly smaller, than the more northern bird, D. p. medianus, intergrading with it where the two ranges meet; the under parts are more brownish, and the white markings of the wings and tail will average of less extent.
The haunts of this woodpecker are similar to those of its northern relative, due allowance being made for the difference in environment. It is a more sociable species than the hairy woodpecker and less of a woodland bird.
In Florida, according to Arthur H. Howell (1932), “it occurs alike in pine woods, hammocks, orchards, roadside hedges, and dooryards.”