The American three-toed woodpecker (''Picoides dorsalis'') is a medium-sized

woodpecker Woodpeckers are part of the bird family Picidae, which also includes the piculets, wrynecks, and sapsuckers. Members of this family are found worldwide, except for Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand, Madagascar, and the extreme polar regions. ...

(

family Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its members and of society. Idea ...

Picidae), which is native to North America.

Description

This woodpecker has a length of , a wingspan of , and an average weight of ; its maximum lifespan in the wild is 6 years. It closely resembles the

black-backed woodpecker The black-backed woodpecker (''Picoides arcticus''), also known as the Arctic three-toed woodpecker, is a medium-sized woodpecker ( long) inhabiting the forests of North America. Taxonomy The black-backed woodpecker was described and illustrat ...

, which is also three-toed. Until recently, it was considered to be the same species as the

Eurasian three-toed woodpecker The Eurasian three-toed woodpecker (''Picoides tridactylus'') is a medium-sized woodpecker that is found from northern Europe across northern Asia to Japan. Taxonomy The Eurasian three-toed woodpecker was formally described in 1758 by the Swedi ...

, ''P. tridactylus''. Adults are black on the head, wings and rump, and white from the throat to the belly; the flanks are white with black bars. The back is white with black bars and the tail is black with the white outer feathers barred with black. The adult male has a yellow cap.

Breeding

The breeding habitat is coniferous forests across western

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S. ...

and the western and extreme northeastern

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. It has also been breeding in various spots in Michigan's upper peninsula, and has been recorded breeding in Minnesota five times. The female lays 3 to 7 but most often 4 eggs in a nest cavity in a dead conifer or sometimes a live tree or pole. The pair excavates a new nest each year. Three-toed woodpeckers rely on disturbed, old-growth forests and are strongly associated with active spruce beetle infestations, with beetle-infested trees being important for the woodpeckers and other species that depend on the cavities they excavate.

Movements and foraging

This bird is normally a permanent resident, but northern birds may move south and birds at high elevations may move to lower levels in winter. Three-toed woodpeckers forage on conifers in search of wood-boring

beetle Beetles are insects that form the order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Endopterygota. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 400,000 describ ...

larvae or other

insect Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three ...

s. They may also eat fruit and tree sap. These birds often move into areas with large numbers of insect-infested trees, often following a forest fire or flooding. This bird is likely to give way to the

where the two species compete for habitat.

Subspecies

*''Picoides dorsalis dorsalis'', nominate Western race. *''Picoides dorsalis fasciatus'', Rocky Mountain race.

Notes

References

External links

*
Photos, videos and observations
at Cornell Lab of Ornithologys Birds of the World
Three-toed woodpecker Information
– USGS Patuxent Bird Identification InfoCenter * {{Taxonbar, from=Q1273082 American three-toed woodpecker Native birds of Alaska Birds of Canada Native birds of the Northwestern United States Native birds of the Rocky Mountains American three-toed woodpecker American three-toed woodpecker Taxobox binomials not recognized by IUCN