Nuttall's Woodpecker Dryobates nuttallii Scientific name definitions

“A narrow canyon whose floor harbors sycamores and alders and bay trees, nourished by a purling stream, and whose sides are lined with live oaks which run up into ceanothus chaparral, is precisely the best place to look for D. nuttallii.” —William L. Dawson, The Birds of California (1 Dawson, W. L. (1923). The Birds of California: A Complete, Scientific and Popular Account of the 580 Species and Subspecies of Birds Found in the State. Volume 2. South Moulton, San Diego, CA, USA. Close : 1001)

This woodpecker named in 1843 by William Gambel for his mentor, the famous British naturalist Thomas Nuttall (2 Mearns, B. C., and R. F. Mearns (1992). Audubon to Xántus: The lives of those commemorated in North American bird names. Academic Press, New York, NY, USA. Close ), is closely associated with the oak woodlands of California. Its distribution extends from the northernmost reaches of California south to northern Baja California. A small black-and-white woodpecker with a barred back, the Nuttall's Woodpecker is quite similar in overall appearance to the Ladder-backed Woodpecker (Dryobates scalaris). For the most part, however, the ranges of the two species do not overlap.

The association of Nuttall's Woodpecker with California oak woodlands has been the emphasis of much of the writing about this species. Other aspects of its biology have received only superficial or incidental attention. The major references for the biology of Nuttall's Woodpecker (3 Miller, A. H. and C. E. Bock. (1972). Natural history of the Nuttall Woodpecker at the Hastings Reservation. Condor 74:284-294. Close , 4 Short, L. L. (1971). Systematics and behavior of some North American woodpeckers, genus Picoides (Aves). Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 145:1–118. Close ) provided a general overview of the life history of the species, but sample sizes of reported observations were often small. Remarkably little has been published on nesting biology; e.g., clutch-size information comes primarily from egg collections; data on incubation period is available for only one nest; and measures of hatching success and nestling growth are unknown. Many aspects of this species' nesting biology and behavior are undoubtedly similar to other Dryobates woodpeckers, especially the Ladder-backed Woodpecker, but study is needed to confirm this.