ARCTIC THREE-TOED WOODPECKER 107 



The Weydemeyers (1928) say that in northwestern Montana this 

 woodpecker "is found most frequently in Transition zone woods that 

 have been logged or burned over. In virgin forests it occurs sparingly 

 in yellow pine woods at low elevations; more commonly in mixed 

 broad-leaf and conifer, and Douglas fir, associations; and rarely in 

 alpine fir and lodgepole pine woods of the higher mountains, in the 

 Canadian zone. Its favorite feeding trees are Douglas fir and western 

 larch." 



Nesting. — Philipp and Bowdish (1919) found four or five nests of 

 the Arctic three-toed woodpecker in Northumberland County, New 

 Brunswick, in May and June 1917. Most of the nests were in living- 

 balsam firs with dead hearts, but one was "in a dead maple stub, near 

 the edge of a large burnt barren, and a short distance from the edge 

 of mixed woods." This was "at a height of about ten feet. The 

 cavity measured IOI/2 inches from the lower edge of entrance to 

 bottom. The entrance measured 1% inches in height and 1% inches 

 in width." They say that — 



apparently nest sites are selected indiscriminately; in dead stubs in open cleared 

 ground or burnt barrens, and in the woods, where nests are often in dead-hearted 

 live trees. The birds have a remarkably strong attachment for their nests, as 

 evidenced by re-laying in nest holes from which eggs had been removed, and 

 their disregard of the immediate presence of intruders. The male evidently 

 performs his share of the work of incubation, as well as care of young. New 

 nest holes are apparently dug each year, and these may not be in the immediate 

 vicinity of nests of the previous year. The site selected tends to be low, only 

 one nest having been noted at a height of over ten feet, while one, as noted, was 

 as low as two feet. Entrances to nest holes are strongly beveled at the lower 

 edge, forming a sort of "door-step," and more or less at sides and even top. 

 While this is true in some cases with the Northern Hairy and some other wood- 

 pecker excavations which we have examined, it has not proved so frequent or 

 pronounced. With experience, one can usually identify the nest hole of this 

 species with comparative certainty, by this one feature. 



Dr. Harrison F. Lewis watched a pair of these woodpeckers exca- 

 vating their nesting hole on May 27, 1936, in some second-gTowth 

 woods, chiefly spruce and fir, in Saguenay County, Quebec; he says 

 in his notes : "The Arctic three-toed woodpeckers had a partly exca- 

 vated nest cavity at a height of about 14 feet on the northwest side of a 

 dead birch stub in a clearing. The stub was about 20 feet high and 1 

 foot in diameter and stood about 10 feet from the border of the 

 clearing. The nest cavity was guarded almost continually by one 

 bird of the pair. The bird on guard clung to the lower edge of the 

 opening of this cavity. Nine other woodpecker-made openings, many 

 of them only partly completed, were to be seen in the same stub. 



"I watched the three-toed woodpeckers, from partial concealment 

 near at hand, for an hour and 25 minutes. Each one of them would 

 spend a period of 15 to 20 minutes at their nest cavity, then be 

 relieved by the other. The periods spent at the cavity by the male 



