Woodpecker

“ He swings like a man wielding a sledge hammer, and to the strength of his neck adds the weight of his body, the spring of his [98] tail, and the momentum of a blow delivered from a greater height. When the little hairy woodpecker does so much with his weak body, we can imagine what great birds like the logcock and the ivory-billed woodpecker, with their tremendous beaks, their huge claws, their springy tails, and their great physical strength can do. They are magnificent birds, the terror of all the grubs that hide in tree-trunks. ”

“ Most of them are Western or Southwestern birds, but one is found in nearly all parts of the United States lying between the Hudson River and the Rocky Mountains, and is the most abundant woodpecker of the middle West. This well-known cousin is the red-headed woodpecker, the tricolored beauty that sits on fence-posts and telegraph poles, and sallies out, a blaze of white, steel-blue, and scarlet, a gorgeous spectacle, whenever an insect flits by. He is the one that raps so merrily on your tin roofs when he feels musical. ”

“ No better little bird comes to our orchards than our friend the downy woodpecker. He is the smallest and one of the most sociable of our woodpeckers,—a little, spotted, black-and-white fellow, precisely like his larger cousin the hairy, except in having the outer tail-feathers barred instead of plain. Nearly everything that can be said of one is equally true of the other on a smaller scale. ”

“ In the case of the ‘ivory-billed woodpecker,’ it is not only white, and hard, and strong, but it has a ribbed surface, which tends to prevent its breaking, and even if he does not form one of this class, the woodpecker is as clever in his own line as any carpenter, and more industrious than many. The moment that he notices symptoms of decay in any tree, he flies off to make a careful examination of it, and when he has decided on the best mode of attack, he loses no time, and has even been known to strip all the bark off a dead pine tree of thirty feet long in less than twenty minutes. ”

“ Should you approach within arm’s length, which may frequently be done, the woodpecker flies to the next stake or the second from you, bends his head to peep, and rattles again, as if to provoke you to a continuance of what seems to him excellent sport. ”

“ The bird may be described as wary rather than shy and is most adept at the familiar woodpecker trick of keeping the trunk of the tree between an approaching observer and itself.
As a rule they do not feed close to the ground, nor have I ever observed one on the ground even after the burning of a woodland, at which time the flicker and the red-bellied woodpecker may both be observed on the ground searching for grubs and insects killed by the blaze. ”

“ Mother Nature is kind to woodpeckers. She [Pg 43] fits them out for life before they leave the seclusion of the nursery. There is no callow, immature period in the face of the world, no "green" age for the gibes or superior airs of elders. A woodpecker out of the nest is a woodpecker in the dress and with the bearing of his fathers,—dignified, serene, and grown up.
As the sweet June days advanced, the young bird in the oak-tree grew bolder. ”

“ Field marks.—The red-bellied woodpecker is so conspicuously marked that it could hardly be overlooked. It is a medium-sized woodpecker, about the size of the hairy; the entire back and rump are conspicuously barred transversely with black and white; the wings are spotted or barred with white; the under parts are uniform gray, except for the inconspicuous reddish tinge on the abdomen; in the [Pg 244] male the entire crown and nape are brilliant scarlet, and a large patch of the same color adorns the nape of the female. ”

“ It was the residence of the large redheaded Woodpecker. He came to the lodge door and asked him to enter. He did so. After some time, the Woodpecker, who was a magician, said to his wife, "Have you nothing to give Manabozho? he must be hungry." She answered, "No." In the centre of the lodge stood a large white tamarack-tree. The Woodpecker flew on to it, and commenced going up, turning his head on each side of the tree, and every now and then driving in his bill. At last he drew something out of the tree, and threw it down, when, behold! a fine, fat raccoon on the ground. ”

“ Field marks.—The hairy woodpecker is a large edition of the downy woodpecker, a black and white woodpecker, white below and black above, spotted with white on the wings, and with a broad white stripe down the center of the back. Only the male has the red patch on the back of the neck. It can be distinguished from the downy by its much larger size, its more restless behavior, its relatively [Pg 21] longer and larger bill, and by the lateral tail feathers, which are pure white in the hairy and somewhat barred with black in the downy. ”

“ I have never seen any indication of food-storage on the part of the Gila woodpecker, as with the California Woodpecker, for they live in a claw-to-beak fashion. They peck at a kernel until it comes off the cob, when it is carried to a post or tree and placed firmly in a crack. Here it is pecked to pieces and eaten. They seem never to swallow a kernel whole but always break it up.
W. L. Dawson (1923) says that this woodpecker indulges in “a systematic search for birds’ eggs, especially those of the Lucy warbler, yellow warbler, and Arizona Least Vireo. ”

“ Hammer, chisel, pick, drill, and drum—all these instruments in one stout bill—and a flexible barbed spear for a tongue that may be run out far beyond his bill, like the hummingbird's, make the woodpecker the best-equipped workman in the woods. All the other birds that pick insect eggs, grubs, beetles and spiders from the bark could go all over a tree and feast, but the woodpecker might follow them and still find plenty left, borers especially, hidden so deep that only his sticky, barbed tongue could drag them out. ”

“ Field marks.—The American three-toed woodpecker is the only woodpecker likely to be seen in the northern woods that has a black back transversely barred with white, white under parts banded with black on the flanks, and a black crown, with or without a yellow crown patch; the yellow patch is very prominent in the adult male and less so in the young birds of both sexes, but lacking in the adult female. In flight the “ladderback” is more conspicuous than when the bird is at rest, and the tail flashes white. ”

“ Woodpecker is so kind as to destroy those horrid insects. I thought at first that he was tapping the tree because he wished to trouble me. We animals are always ready to imagine disagreeable things.”
Tiny came back into the house and to cover his chagrin began to get the storeroom in order.
His mother gathered up the nut-shell cups and placed them in a hollow gourd. As they worked she talked. “Mr. Woodpecker is a clever creature,” she said. “I never before saw a bird that could use his bill with such ease and swiftness.” ”

“ But we observe that [88] while the creeper’s habits are almost precisely like the woodpecker’s,—so much so that when we first make his acquaintance, some of us will be sure we have discovered a new kind of woodpecker,—the chimney swift has but one habit in common with the woodpecker, that of clinging to an upright surface and propping himself by his tail. If the bird with the tail most like the woodpecker’s has the woodpecker’s habits, is it not a fair inference that this form of tail is better fitted to this way of living than the other would be? ”

“ Voice.—The three-toed woodpecker is normally a rather silent bird. Its weak notes have been likened to the squealing notes of the yellow-bellied sapsucker, or the squeak of a small mammal; it also utters a variety of short notes like queep or quip. Horace W. Wright (1911) says: “The calls of the americanus male bird were not excited or loud. The single calls were somewhat like the robin’s call at dusk, and the rattling calls resembled a Hairy Woodpecker’s rattle, but were less loud and sharp.”
Mr. Brewster (1898) writes:
I had abundant opportunities for studying the drumming call today. ”

“ Downy or logcock or goldenwing, a woodpecker is an independent chap that I have never been able to call fairly; not even in spring, when he is all ears for a mate or a rival. Like many other birds, he will come quickly to an excited and deceptive squeaking between my [81] fingers, but to my best drumming he remains deaf or indifferent.
“Ye haven’t the right combination, b’y,” said Bob when I gave over my fruitless attempt, and using his hunting knife as a hammer he began talking woodpecker-talk on a dry stub. ”

“ But it is far from clumsy in the air, and its skill in catching insects on the wing demonstrates [Pg 233] is mastery of the air in flight. It also indulges in some rather remarkable aerial evolutions, which one would hardly expect from a member of the woodpecker family. On this subject, Robert Ridgway (1877) writes:
In its general habits and manners this beautiful species resembles quite closely the eastern Red-headed Woodpecker (M. erythrocephalus) , being quite as lively and of an equally playful disposition. ”

“ Many are the trees which bear evidence of their industry, skill and providence. The huge crow-like pileolated woodpecker with its scarlet crest, the red-shafted flicker, the Sierra creeper, the red-breasted sap-sucker, Williamson's sap-sucker, the white-headed woodpecker, Cabanis's woodpecker with spotted wings and gray breast, the most common of woodpeckers, and Lewis's woodpecker, a large heavy bird, glossy black above, with a white collar and a rich red underpart, have all been seen for many years in succession. ”

“ A number of Starlings collect on or about the tree in which the Woodpecker is, and they all in their turn mob him, and worry his life, until, tired out, he goes off in the hope of finding some other place where he can nest in safety. It is obvious that Woodpeckers are a class of birds whose habits are clearly not adapted to civilization, while woods and forests are continually decreasing in every direction; trees that show the slightest sign of decay are by the present utilitarian generation immediately felled. ”

“ While the robin and the bluebird have come to wear a half domestic look, the woodpecker is the untutored savage still. As an Indian remains an Indian, a woodpecker remains a woodpecker. When he comes to the orchard he is an interloper from the forest. He carries the stamp of the wilderness with him. Defiance is in the poise of his head ”

“ Behavior.—Most observers agree that the Arctic three-toed woodpecker is very tame and unsuspicious, working very quietly on a tree trunk for long periods, without moving about much, and allowing a close approach; perhaps, as it lives most of its life in remote northern forests, where men are scarce, it has not learned to fear human beings. ”

“ Their flight at this season is high and very erratic, resembling much, in its characteristic peculiarities, that of the swallow On warm days they keep up a lively chattering noise, unlike, in character, that of any other woodpecker that I have heard. During the cold season they are so shy that it is difficult to shoot them, as at the least alarm they betake themselves to the tops of the highest trees in the vicinity. ”

“ The nuthatches are the only birds likely to be confused with woodpeckers, and these have the peculiar habit of traveling down a tree-trunk with their heads pointing to the ground. A woodpecker never does this; he may move down the trunk of the tree he is working on, but he will do it by hopping backward. A still surer sign of the woodpecker is the way he sits upon his tail, using it to brace him. No other birds except the chimney swift and the little brown creeper ever do this. A sure mark, also, is his feet, which have two toes turned forward and two turned backward. ”

“ Fall.—The Hairy woodpecker has often been said to be a permanent resident on its breeding grounds, but this is not strictly true. The species may be present all through the year over much of its range, but there is evidence to indicate a general southward movement in fall; the individuals seen in winter are probably not the same as those seen in summer. Moreover, there is a noticeable increase in numbers in certain localities in winter. ”

“ The young in the nest utter the usual hissing sound of young woodpeckers.”
Field marks.—Lewis’s woodpecker should be easily recognized. At a distance it appears likes a black bird, the back and the upper and lower surfaces of the wings being black, with no conspicuous white showing anywhere, and with a crowlike flight, broad wings and black tail. At short range, the greenish sheen of the back may glisten in the sunlight, and the silvery gray collar and pinkish underparts may be seen, as well as the gray upper breast and perhaps the red face. ”

“ Mrs. Woodpecker was thinking what a fine nest such a strong husband could cut out and what quantities of corn and nuts he could hammer into the bark of the trees for an extra food supply. In a very short time the woodpeckers selected the balm-of-Gilead tree by the gate for their home and the work began of cutting and tossing the tiny shavings and so making a hole large enough to accommodate Mrs. Woodpecker while she sat over the ivory eggs waiting the day of their hatching.
Mr. Woodpecker was recognized as king of Leafy Lawn, perhaps because of his lordly manner and fine clothes. ”

“ Gould, "this small Woodpecker is far more abundant than is generally supposed. We have seldom sought for it in vain wherever large trees, particularly elms, grow in sufficient numbers to invite its abode. Near London it is very common, and may be seen by an attentive observer in many of the parks in the neighbourhood. The Lesser Spotted Woodpecker appears to perform a certain daily round, traversing a given extent of district, and returning to the same spot whence it began its route. In its actions it is very lively and alert. ”