DRYOBATES VILLOSUS TERRAENOVAE Batchelder
NEWFOUNDLAND WOODPECKER
HABITS
Charles F. Batchelder (1908), who discovered and described this race of the hairy woodpecker, characterized it as—
Similar to typical Dryobates villosus, but slightly larger, the black areas of the upper parts increased, the white areas reduced both in number and in size, especially in the remiges and wing coverts. * * * Dryobates villosus terraenovae is much smaller than D. v. leucomelas, and is, of course, even more remote from it in coloring than from true villosus. Between it and D. v. hyloscopus and D. v. monticola there is a striking resemblance in coloring, but the wide area—occupied throughout its extent either by villosus or by leucomelas—that intervenes between the ranges of these two Western subspecies and that of terraenovae, precludes the possibility of immediate intergradation, while the utter dissimilarity of the climatic conditions of their respective habitats forbids the supposition that like causes in environment have developed like characters; apparently this is a case where superficial resemblances have arisen entirely independently of climatic influences.
I found the Newfoundland woodpecker fairly common in the heavily timbered valleys of the Fox Island and Sandy Rivers in Newfoundland in 1912. The timber in the flat river bottom and on the islands in the Fox Island River is almost wholly made up of deciduous trees, mainly poplar, canoe birch, ash, mountain ash (which grows to a very large size), and alder, mixed with a few spruces. On the surrounding hillsides the forest growth consists mainly of firs and spruces, with plenty of canoe and yellow birches, poplars, larches, and mountain ashes. The Sandy River runs through a fairly level and heavily timbered region, with forests of large firs, red, white, and black spruces, mixed with some birches and poplars. These two regions were the only places where we found this and the downy woodpecker, nesting in the deciduous trees. It has been observed by others in other places, and doubtless it occurs wherever there is heavy timber, with a fair sprinkling of deciduous trees, mainly along the streams and about the shores of lakes.
I can find nothing noted on its habits that is in any way different from those of the other eastern races. So far as I know, its eggs have never been taken.