Vermont Rare Bird Reports 2023

Spencer Hardy,

Clear, winter, zero humidity cold.

Heard only.

Logged twice before on eBird in the NEK. Familiarity with drumming from Macaulay Library and Sibley's App.

Spruce forest above 2500 feet. Winter.

Drumming.

While standing on top of the fire tower on top of Spruce Mountain, I noticed a very fast, rolling drum that had a fast acceleration at the end. It was resonant and loud; the air was clear, and we could hear a dog barking from far away, but this sound appeared to come from close by, to the northwest, within the spruce line. Once I heard the call, I mentioned it to Spencer, using the phrase "like a machine gun" (note: this was meant to note the speed, not the acceleration, which machine guns do not do). We then heard the drum repeated, once. We proceeded to try soliciting the woodpecker using the Sibley app, and recorded audio for the next fifteen minutes, without a repeated drum or a clear call. Around twelve minutes later, Spencer heard a woodpecker call closeby to the west, which did not show up on the audio recording, which he describes as a "pik" that could have been a Downy.

The call itself lasted around 1.5 seconds. The drums were too fast to count. The acceleration appeared to follow a curve - I described it at the time as similar to a Field Sparrow call in timing (and just timing). The call sounded very similar, to me, to the American Three-toed Woodpecker from the Sibley app. We discussed at length the relative merits of calling it either, and eventually settled on a split, leaning towards ATTW given the BBWO generally has a longer call, and this seemed short. Pileated was eliminated by the location, the regular cadence, and the speed.

The call itself lasted around 1.5 seconds. The drums were too fast to count. The acceleration appeared to follow a curve - I described it at the time as similar to a Field Sparrow call in timing (and just timing). The call sounded very similar, to me, to the American Three-toed Woodpecker from the Sibley app. We discussed at length the relative merits of calling it either, and eventually settled on a split, leaning towards ATTW given the BBWO generally has a longer call, and this seemed short. Pileated was eliminated by the location, the regular cadence, and the speed.

After looking at range maps - one ATTW south of Montreal in New England in the last five years - I feel more comfortable calling this as a BBWO given the range. As well, BBWO has been seen on Spruce before in the past. Note that this makes us biased.

We spent the next two hours walking in the vicinity of the call, with frequent callback, to no effect. However, there were many beautiful snags in blow downs to the north, and we noted several trees on the mountain (although not in the vicinity) with flaked bark.