In New York it is evidently confined to the Adirondack forests. I have heard of no specimen taken farther from the spruce belt than Waterville, Oneida county. It therefore shares with the Spruce grouse, the Canada jay and the Hudsonian chickadee the distinction of being one of our perfectly nonmigratory species. Within the spruce and balsam forests it is quite uniformly distributed, but is less common than the Black-backed woodpecker, evidently about one-half as common as that species. It inhabits both the spruce swamps and the mountain sides. While making the bird survey of the Mount Marcy district we found this species breeding on the slopes of Marcy just above Skylight camp, an altitude of 4,000 feet, and in the swamp at the Upper Ausable lake at an altitude of 2,000 feet.
Nesting.—Mr. Brewster (1898) describes, in considerable detail, the nest he found in a spruce tree in Coos County, N. H., as follows:
On measuring the spruce I found it to be thirty-nine inches in circumference one foot above the ground, and twenty-nine inches at the nest. The hole was on the west side at a height above the ground of exactly ten feet and eleven inches. The entrance hole was somewhat irregular outwardly measuring about one and three quarters inches in breadth by two inches in height—the greater diameter vertically being due to the fact that the lower edges had been chiselled away rather freely to afford a foothold for the bird; half an inch in, the hole was perfectly round, and measured one and one-half inches in diameter.
The interior or nest cavity was irregularly gourd-shaped and ten and one-eighth inches in depth, its greatest diameter, about four and one-half inches, being midway between the bottom and top. The walls were rough and seamy but this was not, perhaps, the fault of the birds, for the wood, although soft and easily worked, had evidently peeled off in long, stringy fibers.
The eggs lay on a deep mat of these shreds some of which were more than one inch in length.
Dr. C. Hart Merriam informed Major Bendire (1895) that “numerous nests were found in the Adirondacks in June, 1883. Most of them were in the flooded timber bordering the inlet of Seventh Lake, Fulton Chain. They varied from 5 to 12 feet in height above the water, and were in spruce, tamarack, pine, balsam, and cedar trees.” The nests of this woodpecker are not always so low down as those mentioned above; Col. John E. Thayer took a set, near Upton, Maine, on June 9, 1898, that was 20 feet from the ground in an old dead spruce stub; and the nests that Mr. Eaton (1914) found in the Adirondacks “were situated in tamaracks and spruces from 25 to 40 feet from the ground.”
Eggs.—Four seems to be the usual number of eggs laid by this woodpecker; I can find no record of either more or fewer in complete sets. The eggs are ovate, pure white, and only moderately glossy. The measurements of 43 eggs average 23.32 by 18.01 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 25.5 by 18.2, 23.8 by 19.6, and 20.1 by 15.0 millimeters.
Young.—The period of incubation is said to be about 14 days, and it is shared by both sexes. Both parents feed and care for the young, even after the young leave the nest, as family parties are seen traveling about together in summer.
Plumages.—The nestlings are probably hatched naked and blind, as with other woodpeckers, but the juvenal plumage is acquired before the young leave the nest. In the juvenal plumage, the young male is similar to the adult male, but the yellow crown patch is smaller and less sharply defined; the upper parts are duller, brownish black instead of sooty black; the flanks are more heavily and more extensively banded, or spotted, with sepia instead of clear black; the white of the throat and breast is tinged with pale buffy. The juvenal female is similar to the young male, but the yellow crown patch is smaller, and the amount of yellow in it is very variable, sometimes only a few scattered feathers and sometimes a well-defined, clear patch. This plumage is worn at least through August and probably well into fall. The only molting adults I have seen were taken in August.
Food.—The feeding habits of the American three-toed woodpecker are almost identical with that of the Arctic three-toed. Prof. F. E. L. Beal (1911) says: