Introduction

Editor's Note: This account, originally published as Strickland's Woodpecker, includes reference to Arizona Woodpecker but not as a separate species.  Now that the two are considered separate species (42nd Suppl. to AOU Checklist; Auk 117(3): 847–858, 2000), with only the Arizona Woodpecker a North American species, references and appropriate sections will be modified to acknowledge this change.

Many a mile of mountaineering have I undertaken in seeking the home of this elusive carpenter, and my reward to date has been several nests of crying babies. In fact, somewhere in my fieldbook I queried whether or not this bird be viviparous, a creature producing living young instead of eggs! H. Brandt, 1951

Strickland’s Woodpecker is a medium-sized montane woodpecker, and the only North American Picoides that is brown and white rather than black and white. This is one of 3 dozen or so species of Mexican birds that reach their northern breeding limits in the extreme southwestern United States. Found in drier pine-oak (Pinus-Quercus) and adjacent riparian woodlands, it shares these habitats with the Blue-throated Hummingbird (Lampornis clemenciae), Magnificent Hummingbird (Eugenes fulgens), Elegant Trogon (Trogon elegans), Sulphur-bellied Flycatcher (Myodynastes luteiventris), and numerous other colorful Madrean woodland species.

As currently classified, Strickland’s Woodpecker includes 2 distinct assemblages of taxa that were formerly treated as separate species and might still deserve that recognition (Am. Ornithol. Union 1998, RRJ, JDL). The Arizona Woodpecker (arizonae group) is the more widespread of the 2 groups and is found in mid-elevation pine-oak woodland from southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico south along Mexico’s Sierra Madre Occidental to Jalisco and then eastward along the southern rim of the Mexican plateau to the state of Michoacán. The second assemblage, which is the older-named and thus bears the species name, Strickland’s Woodpecker (stricklandi group), is more restricted and fragmented in its range, extending disjunctly from the arizonae group along the Central Volcanic Belt eastward to Veracruz at high elevation in open pine woodland. This account focuses mainly on the Arizona Woodpecker because of the shortage of information about the stricklandi group.

Woodpeckers are generally not difficult to study, owing in part to their loud calls, Drumming, and excavation of nesting cavities. Strickland’s Woodpecker is an exception, however, and can be difficult to locate, especially while nesting (Swarth 1904, Brandt 1951, Ligon 1968b, RRJ, LTH). It is particularly secretive during egg-laying and incubation, and early searches by egg collectors such as Herbert Brandt were often unproductive (see quote above). Many accounts of the species are anecdotal, and some earlier information was apparently incorrect and has never been authenticated.

The ecology, morphology, and systematics of both arizonae and stricklandi groups were examined by John Davis (1965). Although the arizonae group, especially its northernmost populations, has been relatively well studied compared to the stricklandi group, neither has been studied as well as most other species of Picoides woodpecker. Data on breeding biology, especially nesting behavior, are still largely lacking. Little is known about the stricklandi group, and habitat destruction in Mexico may have obliterated populations intermediate between the 2 groups, reducing possibilities of determining further taxonomic affinities from additional field studies (JDL).