American Three-toed Woodpecker––a unique and inconspicuous bird of the spruce forest

Many Nomeites are familiar with the small black-and-white, forest-dwelling downy woodpeckers that sometimes show up in the willows around Nome in winter. Some are here now. But fewer people know of our other woodpecker that inconspicuously shares the region’s spruce forests: the American three-toed woodpecker.
This woodpecker is found throughout the boreal forests of Alaska and Canada and the montane forests of the Rocky and Cascade Mountains. In Alaska they live as far north as spruce forests grow and breed further north than any other North American woodpecker.
Throughout their range, three-toed woodpeckers are generally uncommon, year-round residents. They can become locally more numerous in areas where recent fires, floods, or wind have resulted in standing dead or dying trees. There, the decaying, insect-infested wood provides abundant food and ease of excavation for nest cavities.
Though not rare, these birds are quiet and easy to overlook and can be famously hard to find.
In this region they are likely spread throughout the spruce forests of the eastern Seward Peninsula and the forested drainages of eastern Norton Sound, but records of sightings are few.
A few tantalizing reports on eBird of past sightings in the fingers of spruce near Fox River and Bear Creek in the Council area have kept me on the lookout for years, stopping to walk along those sections of road, looking and listening.
Downy woodpeckers, chickadees, grosbeaks, crossbills, and other boreal forest birds have kept me company on these walks, but not until this fall, in late October, did my search for the elusive American three-toed woodpecker pay off.
I could hear the quiet tapping of a distant downy woodpecker as it foraged, and boreal chickadees chattered as they flitted through the spruce boughs on that calm, foggy morning. Then, loud drumming began that seemed to come from a dead spruce close to the road. But I could not spot the performer. It ceased as quickly as it began and I saw a bird take flight from a distant spruce skeleton behind the close one. Its bounding flight gave it away as a woodpecker, and it was not a downy. Finally!
The bird landed at the top of another distant spruce for just long enough for me to get a documentary photo and a quick glimpse of its distinctive black-and-white barred back. It was a rewarding moment, but I hope for a closer encounter one day.
The American three-toed woodpecker and its close relative, the black-backed woodpecker —also found in Alaska but not in this region —differ from other North American woodpeckers by having only three toes, rather than four.
A study of the musculature and skeleton of the three-toed woodpecker found that they could deliver exceptionally powerful blows for their size. It is speculated that the lack of a fourth toe allows them to lean back further from the tree and hit harder than other woodpeckers, which have four toes.
Also unique to three-toed and black-backed woodpeckers is the lack of red in the plumage of either sex. Instead, males are adorned by a large yellow patch on the crown of the head.
Three-toed woodpeckers usually are year-round residents within their territories, and pairs sometimes remain together for more than a year on the same territory.
In spring as nesting time approaches, the male drums and calls to attract the female. The pair feeds close together, calling more often than at other times. They ritualistically move their heads from side to side while facing each other with upward pointing bills. Together, they excavate a new nest cavity, lining it with woodchips, often in the same tree as a previous nest, typically in a dead spruce.
The parents share incubation of their three to seven eggs, which hatch in about two weeks. The helpless nestlings are fed by both parents until they fledge from their nest cavity in about three and a half weeks. The fledglings stay with their parents for another four to eight weeks, each parent caring for half the brood.
Unlike most woodpeckers that drill into wood to find wood-boring insects, three-toed woodpeckers strike sideways at the bark on dead or dying trees, causing flakes to break off, exposing insect larvae in the sap-rich tissue below the bark.
Bark beetle larvae are their main food. Other beetle larvae, larval ants, moth pupae, spiders and sometimes fruit are also eaten. In some areas, they dig sap wells in tree trunks and drink the sap, as sapsuckers do.
American three-toed woodpeckers are little studied due to their remote northern distribution, uncommon presence and low detectability. These aspects prevent reliable estimation of population size or trends, and population status is unknown.
Three-toed woodpeckers provide an important natural pest control function by consuming vast numbers of bark beetles and their larvae, helping to maintain balance in boreal forest ecosystems.
If you live in or visit the region’s spruce forests, keep a sharp eye and ear out for these unique and elusive woodpeckers. In the meantime, enjoy these wonderful photographs taken in Fairbanks and Anchorage by Kotzebue photographer Jim Dau, showing the good looks and some interesting behavior of one of the Seward Peninsula’s seldom seen bird species.