NORTHERN PILEATED WOODPECKER. Phloeotomus pileatus abieticola (Bangs)

Field characters.—Much the largest of our woodpeckers (length over 17 inches). Body plumage black; a brilliant red crest on head (fig. 46); a large white area on forward part of under surface of wing; a smaller spot of white on middle of outer surface of wing. Flies usually in direct course, sometimes in great undulations, with rather slow and regular wing beats. Voice: A loud but low-pitched note, kuk, uttered a varying number of times in rather slow and irregular succession.

Occurrence.—Common resident in Transition Zone and lower part of Canadian Zone on west slope of Sierra Nevada. Observed near Feliciana Mountain and 6 miles east of Coulterville, and thence eastward to Mono Meadow (7300 feet altitude), and to Little Yosemite Valley at 6200 feet. Seen in Yosemite Valley at all seasons of the year. Lives chiefly in white fir woods.

The Northern Pileated Woodpecker has been aptly called Cock-of-the-woods, for it is by far the largest woodpecker within our region. It is exceeded in size and in loudness of voice by but few of all the forest birds. In general, the range of this species closely duplicates that of the fir trees, in recognition of which fact, it was called abieticola (fir-inhabiting). In the Yosemite region the bird is found chiefly in the belt of forest characterized by the presence of the white fir (Abies concolor).

Fig. 46. Head of Northern Pileated Wood pecker showing stout ridged bill, "mask" to keep dust from rotten wood out of nostrils, prominent crest, and slender neck. One-half natural size.

The pileated woodpecker is conspicuous either in flight or when perched. When a bird is at rest or working on the side of a dead stub, its brilliant red crest can generally be seen plainly. In the female the forehead is blackish, while in the male the red covers the whole top of the head, forward to the bill. The latter sex has, in addition, a narrow red streak extending backward from the side of the bill along each cheek. The neck of this woodpecker is much longer and relatively more slender than that of other species, and this impression of slenderness is enhanced by the streak of white which extends down each side from the cheek to the side of the body; otherwise the plumage of the resting bird appears solidly black. When it takes to flight a large white area shows forth, intermittently, on the forward part of the under surface of the spread wing, and on the adjacent side of the body; a smaller patch of white is to be seen as well on the middle of the upper surface of the wing.

The call or alarm note of the pileated woodpecker is a single-syllabled, low-pitched but loud kuk, kuk, kuk, etc., uttered in series, at intervals of a half-second or more, depending upon whether the bird is in flight or perched. Sometimes, when a bird is pursuing a long direct course, its notes will be heard from the time it first comes into view until it passes out of hearing in the opposite direction. The call resembles one of the notes of the Red-shafted Flicker, although it is not so high-pitched.

This bird's flight is quite different from that of our other woodpeckers. It ordinarily pursues a direct course, with wings beating continuously though slowly, in a manner resembling the monoplane-like flight of a magpie. Its head meanwhile is drawn in, somewhat after the manner of a heron.

While one of our party was traversing the Glacier Point road near Mono Meadow on the morning of June 13, 1915, he heard a loud pounding which he at first thought might be the noise made by a lineman in repairing the broken-down telephone wire along the road. The racket was followed up—and the observer came upon a pileated woodpecker foraging on a white fir stub. The bird delivered 3 to 8 vigorous blows in rather slow succession, and repeated the series about 4 times a minute. The bird would draw its head far back, so as to move it through an arc fully 8 inches in length, and the combination of long neck, heavy head, and stout sharp bill (fig. 46) made for results. With every few series of strokes a large flake of dead bark would fall to the ground with a clatter. Other birds, working with similar industry, have been seen to throw chips fully 2 feet backward as they chiseled off the dead wood.

Another pileated woodpecker was observed working diligently on a dead yellow pine in Yosemite Valley on December 24, 1914. After every few taps the bird would stop and look about intently, thus bearing out the impression of its wariness we had gained elsewhere. It rapidly gouged away the dead pine wood, in long splinters, and often used its strong bill as a pry to give the final loosening touch to a particularly large chunk around which it had chiseled. The noise made, as the bird delivered a blow with all the force in its long neck and powerful body, was as loud as that made by a carpenter when hitting a nail. When two birds are working in the same vicinity the resulting noise is considerable. A pair drilling near Yosemite Point on June 4, 1915, produced tones about an octave apart, evidently due to differences in the wood upon which they were working.

The total amount of excavation done by these birds is surprising. Many dead fir stubs seen near Aspen Valley were literally riddled with surface cavities, some of which were large enough to admit a man's fist. Sometimes great vertical troughs had been dug in the sides of these dead and rotting trees. One such trough measured had a total volume of about 1040 cubic inches. Since no evidence was found of work on living timber, we do not believe that the birds work on any wood that is not dead and populated with insect larvae or ants.

Examination of the stomach contents of two pileated woodpeckers taken at Aspen Valley, October 16, 1915, and Sweetwater Creek, near Feliciana Mountain, October 30, 1915, showed each to contain more than a hundred carpenter ants (Camponotus herculaneus modoc). In addition one contained a whole manzanita fruit (Arctostaphylos sp.) and the other, 4 large beetle larvae (Cerambycidae) evidently dug out of some dead tree, for the stomach contained also slivers of dead wood (H. C. Bryant, 1916, p. 32).

The Northern Pileated Woodpecker sometimes departs widely from its usual diet of beetle larvae and ants. For instance, on Sweetwater Creek, near Feliciana Mountain, in late October one was seen feeding on the ripened fruits of the Nuttall dogwood. Because the terminal branchlets which bear the fruit are small and slender, the big bird was forced to hang inverted, chickadee-like, except when the clusters could be reached from a main branch. When suspended on a swaying stem the bird would peck at the fruits in the same manner, and apparently with as much energy, as when digging into a dead fir stub. Its changes of position, made after one fruit cluster had been consumed and it sought another, were accompanied by much flapping of wings and shaking of branches, and usually by the loud kuk, kuk calls. These calls seemed to be given with the bill closed or at most only slightly opened.

It does not seem likely that the work of the pileated woodpecker, large as it must be in total quantity, is in any serious way detrimental to the forest. On the other hand, the birds are probably of material aid in felling dead timber that would otherwise continue to occupy a place in the forest, to the discouragement of younger, growing trees.

Two nest sites were seen by us. Near Yosemite Point on June 4, 1915, two or three holes, of the size for a pileated woodpecker, were located about twenty feet above the ground in a huge dead and rotting fir. Two birds were about and seemed attached to the locality. In Aspen Valley, at dusk on the evening of October 16, 1915, a bird of this species was seen to enter a nest hole about forty feet up in a dead white fir stub. This instance would suggest that these birds may make use of old nesting holes as night shelters during the winter months.