No. 168.
WHITE-HEADED WOODPECKER.
A. O. U. No. 399. Xenopicus albolarvatus (Cass.).
Description.—Adult male: Body plumage and tail glossy black; wings dull black with large blotch of white on median portion of inner primaries and secondaries, and some disconnected white spotting distally; throat and entire head (not deeply) white; a scarlet patch on nape. Bill and feet slaty black; iris red. Female: Exactly as male without scarlet nuchal band. Length: 9.00-9.50 (228.6-241.3); wing 5.15 (130.8); tail 3.50 (88.9).
Recognition Marks.—Chewink to Robin size; white head unique.
Nesting.—Nest: A hole in live pine tree at moderate height. Eggs: 3-7, usually 4, pure white. Av. size, .95 × .71 (24.1 × 18). Season: June-July, according to altitude; one brood.
General Range.—Mountains of the Pacific Coast States north into British Columbia, east to Idaho and Utah.
Range in Washington.—Resident in the mountains, chiefly east of the Cascade summit.
Authorities.—Picus albolarvatus, Baird, Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv. IX. 1858, p. 97. C&S. D¹. D². J.
Specimens.—Prov. C.
There is a Gray’s Harbor record for this bird, but the occurrence is unique west of the Cascades. So far as our experience goes, the White-head is to be looked for only in the pine timber which clothes the eastern slopes of the Cascades and their outliers. The range of the species extends casually northward into British Columbia, but the southern boundary of Oregon is nearer its center of distribution, and the birds decrease rapidly in numbers north of the Peshastin Range in Washington.
At first glance we would say that this bird eschews protective coloration altogether, but Mrs. Bailey argues that even black and white are not very conspicuous colors under our interior sun, and claims that the bird gains inattention from its very unbirdlikeness. Dr. Merrill, who made a most satisfactory study of this species near Fort Klamath in Oregon, regards the bird in winter as the very simulacrum of a broken branch strongly shadowed, and crowned with snow.
Concerning its food habits, Dr. Merrill says[71]; “I have rarely heard the Woodpecker hammer, and even tapping is rather uncommon. So far as I have observed, and during the winter I watched it carefully, its principal supply of food is obtained in the bark, most of the pines having a very rough bark, scaly and deeply fissured. The bird uses its bill as a crowbar, rather than as a hammer or chisel, prying off the successive scales and layers of bark in a very characteristic way. This explains the fact of its being such a quiet worker, and, as would be expected, it is most often seen near the base of the tree, where the bark is thickest and roughest. It must destroy immense numbers of Scolytidæ, whose larvæ tunnel the bark so extensively, and of other insects that crawl beneath the scales of bark for shelter during winter. I have several times imitated the work of this bird by prying off the successive layers of bark, and have been astonished at the great number of insects, and especially of spiders, so exposed. As a result of this, and of its habit of so searching for food, the White-headed Woodpeckers killed here were loaded with fat to a degree I have never seen equalled in any land bird, and scarcely surpassed by some Sandpipers in autumn.”
The White-headed Woodpecker is a quiet bird in manner and voice. I have never heard it utter a sound even in the presence of a nest robber but it is said to have “a sharp, clear ‘witt-witt’” which it uses after the fashion of the Harris Woodpecker, when it flies from tree to tree. The bird is quite wary; but when it cherishes suspicions, it flies away composedly, with no such air of ostentatious offense as Harris indulges on occasion.
The first nest reported from this State was found on July 22nd, 1896, in the valley of the Methow, where this Woodpecker is not at all common. The entrance showed like a clean-cut augur hole, one and five-eighths inches in diameter, driven in a live pine; and was reached conveniently from horseback. Four fresh eggs lay on a bed of chips, some eight inches down, and they were remarkable only for a somewhat uniform distribution of sparse, black spots,—probably dots of adherent pitch, derived from the chips, and soiled to blackness by contact with the sitting bird.
No. 169.
ARCTIC THREE-TOED WOODPECKER.
A. O. U. No. 400. Picoides arcticus Swains.
Synonym.—Black-backed Three-toed Woodpecker.
Description.—Adult male: Upperparts glossy blue-black, duller on flight feathers; primaries and outer secondaries with paired spots of white on edges of outer and inner webs; a squarish crown-patch of yellow (cadmium orange); a small post-ocular spot of white, a transverse white cheek-stripe meeting fellow on forehead and cut off by black malar stripe from white of throat and remaining underparts; sides heavily barred or mingled with blue-black. Bill and feet plumbeous black; iris brown. Adult female: Like male, without yellow crown-patch. Length 9.00-10.25 (228.6-260.4); wing 5.25 (133.3); tail 3.50-4.00 (88.9-101.6); bill 1.25 (31.7).
Recognition Marks.—Chewink to Robin size; yellow crown-patch of male; back without white as compared with P. americanus fasciatus; and black of head continuous with that of back as compared with the Dryobates villosus group.
Nesting.—Not known to breed in Washington, but probably does so. Nest: hole in pine or fir stub, 10-18 inches deep. Eggs: 4-6, white, moderately glossed. Av. size, .96 × .72 (24.4 × 18.3). Season: last week in May, June; one brood.
General Range.—Northern North America from the Arctic regions south to northern tier of states, and in the Sierra Nevada to Lake Tahoe, south in New England and in Alleghany Mountains in winter, but breeding thruout western range.
Range in Washington.—Rare resident in coniferous forests of the central Cascades.
Authorities.—[“Black-backed three-toed woodpecker,” Johnson, Rep. Gov. W. T. 1884 (1885), 22.] Bendire. Life Hist. N. A. Birds, Vol. II. 1895, p. 74. E.
Specimens.—U. of W. Prov. C. E.
The Black-backed Woodpecker should occur in all our mountains, and especially upon the pine-timbered slopes of the eastern Cascades and in the Blue Mountains. It must, however, be considered rather rare, for we have never met with it afield, and have records of only two specimens, one taken at Glacier and the other near Lake Kichelas. The species is practically non-migratory and should breed wherever it occurs. It is ordinarily a very quiet bird, devoting itself assiduously to its search for tree-boring insects and their larvæ, chiefly Buprestidæ and Cerambycidæ; and at other than breeding seasons appears stolidly to ignore the presence of strangers. Its note is described as a sharp, shrill “chirk, chirk”; and it is besides a most persistent drummer, rattling away at a single station for minutes at a time, so that the ornithologist who is suspicious may follow the lead from a half mile’s distance.