Nesting.—Mr. Howell (1932) says that, in Florida, “the nest of the downy is usually dug in a decaying limb of a tree or occasionally in a fence post, and may be anywhere from 5 to 50 feet above the ground.” Harold H. Bailey (1925) says that “for the nesting site, they usually select a dead stub of some live tree, preferring a hard one to a soft or decayed wood. The cavity is drilled each year anew by the birds, the hole being about one and a quarter inches in diameter and eight to twelve inches deep, varying in height from twenty to sixty feet above ground.” John Helton, Jr., tells me of a nest he found on April 20, near Troy, Ala., that “was drilled in a rotten oak limb, which had fallen, been caught, and was suspended among the branches of a pine. It contained three small young and one infertile egg. The mother bird fed the young with great regularity every three minutes.” M. G. Vaiden, of Rosedale, Miss., writes to me of a nest 35 feet up in a dead snag of a pecan tree; the limb was four inches in diameter and the cavity only five inches deep. George Finlay Simmons (1925) says that, in Texas, it nests “10 to 20 feet from ground in small dead deciduous trees, or in old stumps or telegraph poles.”
Eggs.—The eggs are like those of the northern downy but slightly smaller. The measurements of 25 eggs average 19.43 by 15.24 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 20.8 by 14.9, 20.6 by 16.7, and 17.78 by 13.46 millimeters.
Behavior.—Writing of the habits of these woodpeckers in the sandhills of North Carolina, Milton P. Skinner (1928) says:
They are seen at times with Chickadees, red-cockaded woodpeckers, Brownheaded Nuthatches, Kinglets and Juncos. And these associations seem to be actual and usual, and not temporary and accidental ones as they are between most birds of different species. The downy woodpeckers are peaceable little fellows but other birds will impose on them. I have seen a yellow-bellied sapsucker and a mob of three or four English Sparrows near Pine Bluff chasing one about. But downy was a fast flier and outflew all his tormentors each time. Their flight is undulating and typical of the woodpecker family. These woodpeckers have one trait of the Brown Creepers—they prefer to work up a tree and fly down to the base of the next one.
Perhaps a downy woodpecker does not really work any harder or faster for its food than any other bird, but somehow it seems that it does. I found one once on an inclined limb of a catalpa near the Highland Pines Inn and watched it work up ten feet in thirteen minutes. During that time downy’s blows fell good and hard at the average of a hundred strokes each minute except for a dozen momentary stops when a big bird flew over, or the downy scratched its head. It was feeding on small white grubs which it secured at an average rate of four per minute. * * *
These woodpeckers have the habit in the Sandhills of digging holes in which to sleep. One found a suitable place in the end of a dead limb of a large gum standing in a flooded swamp near Mid Pines Club. This limb had been broken and left a stub sticking out about five feet long at right angles to the trunk of the gum and about forty feet above the ground. It was about five inches in diameter where the woodpecker began work on it. Work was started on the under side of the limb about nine inches from the outer end on February 11, 1927, and the bird dug at it for forty-five minutes to such good purpose that the hole would then admit all its bill and half its head. As it worked it clung head down under the limb. Then it left its work to go foraging but came back in thirty minutes to resume work. During the next three days this woodpecker must have worked steadily for it then had a hole into which it could completely disappear. But the hole was not large enough nor deep enough, and the bird was still at work, continually popping in and out (backward) of its hole; usually when it backed out it carried a bill full of chips and shavings that it threw over its shoulder. As it did so, it glanced once or twice to either side as if to assure itself that all was well. Then back into the hole for another period of steady hammering. Apparently this woodpecker worked thus from thirty minutes to an hour after each half hour’s foraging trip. Two more days of work completed the sleeping quarters in a snug cozy retreat. When finished, the hole was six inches deep, and the limb around it was a mere shell. The opening being beneath the limb, it was sheltered from storms, and from any water running into it.
DISTRIBUTION
Range.—North America; nonmigratory.
The range of the downy woodpecker is north to Alaska (Russian Mission, Tanana, and Fort Egbert); southwestern Mackenzie (Fort Simpson and Fort Providence); northern Alberta (Fort McMurray); central Saskatchewan (Big River and Prince Albert); southern Manitoba (Lake St. Martin, Shoal Lake, and Indian Bay); Ontario (Lac Seul, Gargantua, and Sudbury); Quebec (Lake Mistassini, Godbout, and Natashguan River); and Newfoundland (Nicholsville and probably St. Johns). The eastern limit of the range extends south along the Atlantic coast from this point to southern Florida (Miami, Royal Palm Hammock, and Flamingo). From this southeastern point the species is found westward along the Gulf coast to Mississippi (Biloxi) and Louisiana (New Orleans), thence in the interior to south-central Texas (Giddings and Pecos); southern New Mexico (Mayhill, Cloudcroft, and Silver City); Arizona (San Francisco Mountain and Fort Valley); and southern California (Escondido). The western limits extend nearly or quite to the Pacific coast north through California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia to Alaska (Sitka, Sitkalidak Island, Bethel, and Russian Mission).
The range as above outlined is for the entire species, which has been separated into six subspecies. The typical form, the southern downy woodpecker (D. p. pubescens), is found in the South Atlantic and Gulf States north to North Carolina and Oklahoma; the northern downy woodpecker (D. p. medianus) ranges north from Virginia, Tennessee, and Kansas (casually eastern Colorado) north to southern Alberta, Manitoba, Quebec, and Newfoundland; Nelson’s downy woodpecker (D. p. nelsoni) ranges southeast from northwestern Alaska to central Alberta and is found casually even farther east; Batchelder’s woodpecker (D. p. leucurus) is the Rocky Mountain form and is found from the Kenai Peninsula of Alaska south to New Mexico and Arizona, casually east to Nebraska and on the coast of British Columbia; Gairdner’s woodpecker (D. p. gairdneri) is found on the Pacific coast from British Columbia south to northern California; and the willow woodpecker (D. p. turati) is confined to California, being distributed rather generally over the State except in the desert areas and the northwestern part.