American Downy Woodpecker Habitats: Black Body, Cavity Nest, White Egg

Summary: North American downy woodpecker habitats year-round throughout Canada and the United States support black bodies from white eggs in cavity nests.

female downy woodpecker (left), Poquott, Suffolk County, North Shore of Long Island, southeastern New York; Saturday, March 24, 2007, 08:27: Wolfgang Wander, CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons

North American downy woodpecker habitats alert cultivators to Picidae family member wildlife associations with such fungal diseases as tree heart rot and naturalists to distribution ranges in Canada and the United States.

Downy woodpeckers bear their common name and the scientific name Picoides pubescens (woodpecker-like downy) from the soft, white down on the feathers of their lower backs. Ornithologists consider gairdnerii, glaciali, leucurus, medianus, nelsoni and turati subspecies subsequent to Carl Linnaeus's (May 23, 1707-Jan. 10, 1787) nominate Picoides pubescens pubescens categorization in 1766. Dead limbs in live trees or in dead stubs or stumps or rotting wood in fence-posts draw solitary downy woodpeckers into communal flocks of monogamous mates.

Eleven-year lifespans expect coniferous, deciduous, mixed or second-growth forests, parks or woodlands, orchards, suburban, swampy or urban woods, timbered bottom-lands or tree-scattered farmlands, fields or meadows.

April through July facilitate brooding one two- to eight-egg clutch, followed by a second in the southern states, at 3- to 50-foot (0.91- to 15.24-meter) heights.

Parents-to-be gut 1.25- to 1.5-inch (3.18- to 3.81-centimeter) diameter entrance holes and 8- to 12-inch- (20.32- to 30.48-centimeter-) deep cavity nests within 13 to 20 days. Cavities head into downward-turning interiors 2 inches (5.08 centimeters) high and wide 2 inches (5.08 centimeters) from upward-sloping entrances 3 inches (7.62 centimeters) high and wide. Day-shift mothers and night-shift fathers implement 12-day incubations of non- or semi-glossy, 0.75- to 0.79-inch (19- to 20-millimeter) by 0.55- to 0.59-inch (14- to 15-millimeter) eggs.

Cooper's hawks, hairy woodpeckers, northern goshawks, parasitic blow- and louse-flies, peregrine falcons, rats, red-bellied woodpeckers, sharp-shinned hawks, snakes and squirrels jeopardize North American downy woodpecker habitats.

The last or next-to-last, smooth, subelliptical to oval, white egg kickstarts incubations that keep subsequently hatched blind, helpless, naked, same-sized, similar-aged nestlings in dark, dry dwellings.

Nestlings live off food foraged by, and portioned from the bills of, both parents in the furthest interiors for eight days and, as nine-day-olds, on downslopes. They move to entrance holes as 12-day-olds and, even though they maintain daily parental contact for another three weeks, to nearby roosts as 20- to 22-day-olds. Fresh water-scooping adults need ants, beetles, berries, bird-feeder suet, bugs, cambium tissue, caterpillars, fruits, goldenrod gall-inducing insects, plant lice, sap, scale insects, seeds, spiders and weevils.

North American downy woodpecker habitats up to 9,022.31 feet (2,750 meters) above sea level offer winter-coldest temperatures at minus 60 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 51.11 degrees Celsius).

Ash, aspen, beech, blackberry, blueberry, corn, cottonwood, dogwood, elderberry, elm, goldenrod, hazelnut, hemlock, hickory, maple, oak, spruce, sunflower, sycamore and willow promote downy woodpecker life cycles.

Olive-brown irises, long tails and red-patched napes respectively quicken identifications of brown upper-bodied, buff-gray under-bodied juvenile and black-and-white upper-bodied, white under-bodied, mature females and male adults. Barred, white-spotted black wings, black crown patches and shoulders, black, pointed, short bills, brown or brown-red irises and white backs and underparts reveal gray-footed, gray-legged adults. Gliding, undulating, wing-beating flight on 10- to 12-inch (25.4- to 30.48-centimeter) wingspans suggest 6- to 7-inch (15.24- to 17.78-centimeter), 0.74- to 0.99-inch (21- to 28-gram) adults.

North American downy woodpecker habitats transmit chirps, excavation-related slow taps, excited, high-pitched, sharp pik calls, higher-pitched, hoarse whinny calls and mating- or territory-related, rapid, steady drumming.

illustration of downy woodpecker (Picus pubescens) eggs; Illustrations of the Nests and Eggs of Birds of Ohio, Plate LVI, opposite page 204: Public Domain, via Biodiversity Heritage Library

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

female downy woodpecker (left), Poquott, Suffolk County, North Shore of Long Island, southeastern New York; Saturday, March 24, 2007, 08:27: Wolfgang Wander, CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Downy_Woodpecker02.jpg; Wolfgang Wander, GFDL 1.2, via @ https://www.pbase.com/image/76277741

illustration of downy woodpecker (Picus pubescens) eggs; Illustrations of the Nests and Eggs of Birds of Ohio, Plate LVI, opposite page 204: Public Domain, via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/34908355

For further information:

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Baicich, Paul J.; and Harrison, Colin J.O. Nests, Eggs, and Nestlings of North American Birds. Second edition. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, Princeton Field Guides, 2005.

Grinnell, Joseph. 5 March 1910. "Birds of the 1908 Alexander Alaska Expedition: Dryobates pubescens glacialis, new subspecies. Valdez Downy Woodpecker." University of California Publications in Zoology, 5 (1908-1910): 12: 390-392, figure 7. Berkeley CA: The University Press.
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Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/48842308

Maynard, Charles J. (Johnson). April 1889. "Description of Two Supposed New Sub-Species of Birds From Vancouver's Island: Dryobates pubescens fumidus novo." Ornithologist and Oölogist: Birds: Their Nests and Eggs, vol. XIV, no. 4: 58. Boston MA: Frank B. Webster.
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Swainson, William. 1831 (MDCCCXXXI). "[103] 4. Picus (Dendrocopus) varius. (Swainson.)  Yellow-bellied Woodpecker." Fauna Boreali-Americana; Or the Zoology of the Northern Parts of British America, second volume: The Birds: 308-311. London UK: John Murray.
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