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Life histories of North American woodpeckers

Chapter 19: QUEEN CHARLOTTE WOODPECKER
By Arthur Cleveland Bent
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Nature/Gardening/AnimalsScience - Biology

About This Book

A systematic, species-by-species compilation presents detailed life histories of North American woodpeckers, covering recognized subspecies and summarizing geographic ranges. For each taxon it describes plumage and molt sequences, habits of feeding, breeding behavior, nesting sites, egg characteristics with condensed egg-date data, and seasonal movements. Measurements, references to contributors, and methodology for compiling distribution paragraphs and egg records are included, along with brief notes to avoid duplication among subspecies. Color and egg-shape nomenclature follow standard references, and the work emphasizes observational records and museum data assembled from many contributors.

DRYOBATES VILLOSUS PICOIDEUS Osgood

QUEEN CHARLOTTE WOODPECKER

HABITS

Dr. Wilfred H. Osgood (1901) described the hairy woodpecker of the Queen Charlotte Islands, as a full species, Dryobates picoideus. He says it can be distinguished from all other members of the villosus group by the black markings on the back and characterizes it as “similar in general to Dryobates v. harrisi; bill slightly smaller; middle of back barred and spotted with black; flanks streaked with black.” He says that this woodpecker is not abundant on the islands; during a period of over a month spent in active collecting he saw only six, all of which were collected.

I cannot find that anything has been published on the habits of the Queen Charlotte woodpecker, which probably do not differ essentially from those of harrisi, to which it is closely related and which inhabits a similar, humid coast environment. There are a number of skins of this race in various collections, but, so far as I know, no authentic eggs have ever found their way into any American collection. Very little exploration has been done in the interior of the Queen Charlotte Islands, and we know very little about the habits of its birds.