Life histories of North American wookpeckers. Order Piciformes

Abstract

Hoyt (1905) states that "in Florida they begin building the latter part of January, and if undisturbed the eggs are laid by February 10th." In 1937 James Tanner (MS.) discovered a nest in Louisiana from which the fledgling left on March 30, fully 2 months earlier than any previous records from the same locality, and in 1938 apparently the same pair of birds had young the last week in February.In contrast to these dates we find 10 records of April nesting, 5for May, and 1 (Beyer, 1900) of a young bird just out of the nest in July. The latter records might well constitute second attempts at nesting. The Florida birds, in general, start earlier than those in Louisiana, but at best there seems to be less regularity to the commencement of the nesting period than is found with most of our North American woodpeckers. In this, the ivorybill may register its affinity with tropical birds in general, the ivorybill being the most northern representative of an otherwise tropical or semitropical genus. There is some evidence for believing that ivorybills wander over considerably larger territories in winter than those to which they confine their activities in the spring, but little definite information has thus far been recorded on any of their before and after breeding activities. IVORY-BILLED WOODPECKER 6Courtship.-Nothing seems to have been written on the courtship of the ivorybill except the observations of Allen and Kellogg (1937) : Our only observations were made in Florida about 6 a. m., on April 13, 1924. We had discovered this pair of ivorybills at about the same time the preceding morning when they came out of the cypress swamp and preened their feathers and called a few times from the top of a dead pine before going off together to feed. They had made such a long flight the previous day that we were unable to find them again, but that night, still traveling together, they had returned to the same group of medium-sized cypress trees which they had apparently left in the morning and in which there was one fresh hole in addition to four or five other old ones in the near vicinity. On the morning of the 13th, they called as they left these cypress trees and flew to the top of a dead pine at the edge of the swamp, where they called and preened. Finally the female climbed up directly below the male and when she approached him closely he bent his head downward and clasped bills with her. The next instant they both flew out on to the "burn," where we followed their feeding operations for about an hour.Nesting.-As before stated, while there are a few records of February nesting, the most definite records are for March, April an ash or a hackberry, and is at a great height." There are, however, records of their nesting in live cypress, partially dead oaks, a dead royal-palm stub, "an old and nearly rotten white elm stump," etc., indicating about as great a variety as shown by the pileated woodpecker. The lowest authentic nest of which we have found a record, was that described by Beyer (1900) "about 25 feet up in a l...

Habitat Utilization by Four Species of Woodpeckers in a Central Illinois Woodland

“…Sapsuckers were observed to drill rows of holes and repeatedly probe them for sap, a behavior also reported by Bent (1939). Perhaps larger limbs contain more sap and permit acquisition of more energy per unit time.…”

“…Red-headed woodpeckers, according to Bent (1939), are, "essentially a bird of the open country and not in any sense a forest dweller." Selander and Giller (1959) noted that in Texas red-heads preferred open areas.…”

Determination of the wingsnap sonation mechanism of the Golden-collared manakin (Manacus vitellinus)

“…These birds hammer with extraordinary force (G-forces of ca. 1200, enough to give most vertebrates a strong concussion; Yoon and Park, 2011) against wood for purposes of feeding and to communicate via high-amplitude acoustic signals (Bent, 1939), but specializations of their skulls prevent damage to the brain (Wang et al, 2011).…”

Dry forests of the Northeastern Cascades Fire and Fire Surrogate project site, Mission Creek, Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest

“…Hessburg et al (this volume) found similar levels of woodpecker foraging activity among study stands. Bent (1939) found hairy woodpeckers prefer to forage on snags, where they excavate and probe bark to obtain insects. This behavior was also observed in woodpeckers in the Blue Mountains (Thomas et al 1979), the coastal range of Oregon (Weikel and Hayes 1999), and southern Washington (Lundquist 1988, Lundquist andManuwal 1990).…”