DRYOBATES VILLOSUS SITKENSIS Swarth
SITKA HAIRY WOODPECKER
HABITS
In the coast region of southeastern Alaska and northern British Columbia we find a race that Harry S. Swarth (1911b) says, in describing and naming it, “differs from D. v. harrisi mainly in the very much paler, less smoky hue of the lower parts, and the more buffy coloration of the nasal tufts. Somewhat like D. v. picoideus, but paler colored below, and lacking the barred rectrices of that race.” He says elsewhere (1922):
Sitkensis, in its relatively light ventral coloration, is intermediate between the extremely dark harrisi and the white-breasted monticola. The dark-breasted type of coloration reaches its extreme development in picoideus of the Queen Charlotte Islands, interposed between the ranges of harrisi and sitkensis. Thus, while specimens of sitkensis as laid out in trays may be arranged to illustrate a step between harrisi and monticola, the geographical distribution of the several forms is not in accordance with this idea. The geographical chains appear to lie as follows: Starting with the white-breasted races of the interior of the northwest, septentrionalis and monticola, there is an extension westward on the coast of a slightly darker breasted race, sitkensis. Starting again with the dark breasted type, harrisi, of the Puget Sound region, and going northward, we reach the extremely dark colored picoideus. Thus, sitkensis and harrisi are really far apart genetically, and the appearance of sitkensis as a seeming intergrade between monticola and harrisi must be explained on grounds other than those of such actual intermediate relationship. Sitkensis, as an offshoot of the white-breasted type of the interior, may have arrived at the humid coast at too recent date to be yet affected by its surroundings to the extent that harrisi and picoideus have been; or it may be more resistant to such an environment. In either case the slight modification of the clear white breast of monticola produced by the humid surroundings would result in an apparent intergrade toward harrisi.
On the habits of this subspecies, which probably do not differ materially from those of other hairy woodpeckers, I can find only the following brief comment by Joseph Dixon, quoted by Dr. Joseph Grinnell (1909): “At the three lakes back of Mole Harbor I saw more of these birds than at all other places put together. Their slow drumming sounded so similar to the clicking of a telegraph instrument that we dubbed them ‘telegraph woodpeckers’ to distinguish them from the sapsuckers.” So far as I know, the nest of this woodpecker has never been reported. It is probably resident throughout its breeding range.