through the winter, but with the increase of the number
of insects in March this activity greatly increases. The
observation post for fly-catching is usually the one in
which the nest hole is situated. But I noted at least one
bird that used four tall trees in succession for this
purpose. On February 1, 1927, a red-headed woodpecker was
seen clinging to the side of a telephone pole. Twice it
left the pole, flew out twenty feet, caught an insect each
time, and returned to the pole to eat it. Two weeks later
another bird was seen to make six trips similarly out
and back during six minutes, sometimes going more than a
hundred feet from its perch. As the bird went direct to the
insect, caught it and returned immediately to its perch,
it seemed likely that the insect was seen each time before
the bird started, indicating wonderful eyesight. While not
engaged in thus hawking, this bird hunted the limbs for
prey. Ten days later I found this bird watching for insects
and making ten fly-catching sallies in minute and a half.
Its flights were from ten to one hundred and fifty feet in
length, and all the insects were from forty to sixty feet
above the ground. One of the redheads seen fly-catching in
December, returned to its dead stub where it drilled for
grubs and borers in the usual woodpecker fashion, except
that its strokes were heavy and deliberate. On another
occasion, I saw one of these birds fly down into the road
to catch and eat an earthworm.
E. D. Nauman (1930), in Iowa, watched a red-headed woodpecker feeding
a young bird in the top of a tall tree. “The adult bird was at work,
darting off every few moments into the air in pursuit of insects and
returning after each flight to the young bird on the tree with its
prey. I watched and timed it carefully for an hour. It made from five
to seven trips per minute, always at an elevation of 50 to 100 feet,
and caught at each trip from one to three or more insects. * * *
“A computation based upon careful observation showed that a single
individual Redhead had destroyed over 600 insects in one hour. When I
left, the bird was still at work, and I am, of course, unable to state
how long it had been at work at this place before I came there.”
A. V. Goodpasture (1909), of Nashville, Tenn., made some interesting
observations on the feeding habits of this woodpecker. He watched one
preparing insect food for its young on a stump, some 4 feet high, near
its nest, and says:
When one of the woodpeckers came in, it did not go directly
to the nest, but always alighted first on this stump, where
it hammered away for a time, then proceeded to the nest
with a shapeless mass in its beak. My glass having failed
to disclose their object in thus lighting and hammering
on the stump before feeding their young, I went down to
reconnoiter. The place looked like a field hospital after a
severe engagement. There were wings, and wing-covers, heads
and legs strewn around the stump in great profusion. Then
I understood it all. The stump was their meat-block, and
they were preparing the food for their young by removing
the hard and indigestible parts. They dispatched this work
with much dexterity, without using their feet to confine
the insect; they laid it on the stump, and, with the bill
alone, succeeded in removing the undesirable parts.
The kinds of insects whose remains were found there was a
study. They were almost as gaudy as the woodpecker himself.
* * * Woodpeckers can undoubtedly distinguish between
colors; they find the ruddiest apple and the rosiest
peach in the orchard. In like manner, they seem to be
attracted by bright-colored insects. They prefer beautiful
butterflies, silky moths, and brilliant beetles. The
favorite food of this pair was the June-bug; not the plain
brown beetle of the northern states, but the beautiful
green and gold June-bug of the South--associated in the
mind with sultry summer days, and ripe blackberries, on
which he feeds. * * *
I found not only the dismembered wing-covers of the
June-bug around the Woodpecker’s meat-block, but, in a
pit on the splintered top of the stump, I found a live
June-bug. And what a prison he was in! It was a thousand
times worse than the Black Hole of Calcutta. They had
turned him on his back and pounded him into a cavity that
so exactly fitted him that he could move nothing but his
legs, which were plying like weaver’s shuttles in the empty
air. I always found the June-bugs deposited on their backs,
and always alive.
The red-headed woodpecker also shares with the California woodpecker
the provident habit of storing acorns and nuts. Fannie Hardy Eckstorm
(1901) says:
Lately it has been discovered that they not only eat
beechnuts all the fall, but store them up for winter use.
This time the observation was made in Indiana. There, when
the nuts were abundant, the red-heads were seen busily
carrying them off. Their accumulations were found in all
sorts of places; cavities in old tree-trunks contained nuts
by the handful; knot-holes, cracks, crevices, seams in the
barns were filled full of nuts. Nuts were tucked into the
cracks in fence-posts; they were driven into railroad ties;
they were pounded in between the shingles on the roofs; if
a board was sprung out, the space behind it was filled with
nuts, and bark or wood was often brought to cover over the
gathered store.
Unlike the California woodpecker, it does not make holes for the
reception of the nuts but uses what cavities it can find. Dr. Thomas
S. Roberts (1932) says that, on the outskirts of St. Paul, “a redhead
spent most of October putting acorns into cracks and climbing-iron
holes in a telephone pole and under the shingles of a near-by house.
One crack was closely plugged for a distance of twenty feet. When the
nuts were too large for the cracks they were split and driven in in
pieces.”
George A. Dorsey (1926) tells of an amusing attempt of a young redhead
to fill a hole in a telephone pole:
Finally he found a hole to his liking, and, chattering as
he worked, he drove the acorn in. Imagine my surprise when
I saw a couple of acorns fall out on the other side of the
pole! The hole was bored straight through the pole, and
the Woodpecker was wasting his time by pushing the acorns
through. He seemed to know that something was wrong, but
couldn’t quite reason it out. He would chatter agitatedly
and hitch around the pole to examine the other side of the
pole, but would finally give it up and go off for another
acorn. I watched him poke acorns in the hole several times,
only to have some of the ones he had previously placed
there fall out on the other side. On the ground under the
pole was about a double handful of acorns that had fallen
out.
E. D. Nauman (1932) saw a house mouse running across a paved street,
but it had not gone very far when a red-headed woodpecker “darted down
out of the grove and made an attack upon it. The woodpecker struck
the mouse several hard and vicious blows with its stout bill, rolling
and tossing it over and over. It appeared that a moment more of such
treatment must have finished the mouse, had not a vehicle approached
just at that instant, threatening to crush both the red-head and its
prey. The bird darted away just in time to save itself, and the mouse,
not having been struck by the wheels, hurriedly limped to the edge
of the pavement, got over the curb with difficulty, and hid in the
grass. The red-head flew back immediately to see what had become of its
prospect for dinner, but the mouse was so well hidden that the bird had
to give up the chase.”
Mr. DuBois writes to me that “a red-headed woodpecker was observed
hanging upside down from the small twigs at the end of a branch of a
large oak, evidently gleaning insect life of some sort from the twigs.
It flew to another tree and repeated this method of feeding.”
Lewis O. Shelley tells me that he observed one “feeding on ants in a
dry, harvested oat piece, obtaining the ants by thrusting the bill
into an ant tunnel entrance and working the bill to form a cone-shaped
opening, up through which the ants emerged at the disturbance, and were
licked up without the bill being withdrawn from this foodhopper.”
_Behavior._--Audubon (1842) writes attractively of the behavior of this
woodpecker:
With the exception of the mocking-bird, I know of no
species so gay and frolicksome. Indeed, their whole life
is one of pleasure. They find a superabundance of food
everywhere, as well as the best facilities for raising
their broods. * * * They do not seem to be much afraid of
man, although they have scarcely a more dangerous enemy.
When alighted on a fence-stake by the road, or in a field,
and one approaches them, they gradually move sidewise out
of sight, peeping now and then to discover your intention;
and when you are quite close and opposite, lie still until
you are past, when they hop to the top of the stake, and
rattle upon it with their bill, as if to congratulate
themselves on the success of their cunning. 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. * * *
They chase each other on wing in a very amicable manner,
in long, beautifully curved sweeps, during which the
remarkable variety of their plumage becomes conspicuous,
and is highly pleasing to the eye. When passing from one
tree to another, their flight resembles the motion of a
great swing, and is performed by a single opening of the
wings, descending at first, and rising towards the spot
on which they are going to alight with ease, and in the
most graceful manner. They move upwards, sidewise, or
backwards, without apparent effort, but seldom with the
head downwards. * * *
On the ground, this species is by no means awkward, as it
hops there with ease, and secures beetles which it had
espied whilst on the fence or a tree.
Red-headed woodpeckers are quite quarrelsome at times with other
species; besides attacking various small birds, driving them away from
their nests, or robbing them of their eggs or young, they contend
with other hole-nesting birds, such as starlings and the smaller
woodpeckers, for the possession of nesting holes. They are jealous of
their food supply and will drive other birds away from their favorite
feeding places or from any choice morsel of food. They are generally
the winners in such encounters, even against such aggressive rivals as
blue jays and starlings. But toward birds of their own species they
are often solicitous, friendly, and helpful to birds in trouble. Mr.
DuBois writes to me: “A wounded female, after several attempts to fly,
fluttered to the ground; and while she was fluttering in the air, her
mate flew to her and apparently tried to help her to a place of safety.
After reaching the ground, the female lay still in the grass, although
only winged; but her mate clung to a nearby tree, from which he flew
down to her repeatedly, showing great distress.”
H. M. Holland (1931) tells the following story:
A red-head was caught by one wing, and possibly a foot,
in a crack formed at the tip of a tall, dead tree where
the trunk had been broken off and left a splintered stub.
Perhaps a dozen red-heads were present, all flying here
and there, evidently much excited, and make a great ado, a
veritable woodpecker hubbub.
First one and then another would alight just below and
apparently peck at, or more often while in flight would
strike or brush against the hapless victim, whose struggles
were renewed at each encounter. The clamor became actually
distressing. At times two or three were simultaneously
fluttering close to the captive. These activities continued
for several minutes when suddenly the bird was freed, to
accomplish which it would seem that a concerted effort
had been made. Quiet was restored almost at once and the
participants dispersed.
Julian K. Potter (1912) noticed that sparrows bothered his woodpeckers
considerably about their roosting holes and saw one of them fighting
two starlings for the possession of a cavity, but all were eventually
driven away and learned the lesson of “no trespass.” He says: “On one
occasion, when I watched the woodpeckers until dark, I found that one
went to roost in the nesting-hole about dusk, and the other, probably
the male, shortly after went into an old hole in the same dead tree
higher up.”
Mrs. John Franklin Kyler (1927) gives an interesting account of a
red-headed woodpecker that she raised by hand from the nest, beginning
before the young bird had opened its eyes; it developed into a very
satisfactory pet, with marked affection for its foster mother; anyone
who wants to try raising young birds could learn much by reading her
story.
_Voice._--Bendire (1895) writes: “Its ordinary call note is a loud
‘tchur-tchur’; when chasing each other a shrill note like ‘chärr-chärr’
is frequently uttered, and alarm is expressed by a harsh, rattling
note, as well as by one which, according to Mr. Otto Widmann, is
indistinguishable from the note of the Tree-frog (_Hyla arborea_). He
tells me that both bird and frog sometimes answer each other.”
Describing their spring notes, W. L. Dawson (1903) says:
Then the woods and groves soon resound with their loud
calls, _Quee-o--quee-o--queer_. These _queer_ cries are not
unpleasant, but the birds are a noisy lot at best. When one
of them flies into a tree where others are gathered, all
set up an outcry of _yarrow, yarrow, yarrow_, which does
not subside until the newcomer has had time to shake hands
all around at least twice. Besides these more familiar
sounds the red-heads boast an unfathomed repertory of
chirping, cackling, and raucous noises. The youngsters,
especially,--awkward, saucy fellows that most of them
are--sometimes get together and raise a fearful racket
until some of the older ones, out-stentored, interpose.
_Field marks._--The red-headed woodpecker is so conspicuously marked
that it hardly could be mistaken for anything else. The large white
areas in the wings and on the rump are much in evidence, in any
plumage, especially in flight. The bright red of the entire head and
neck and the plain white breast of the adult are also very conspicuous.
_Enemies._--The red-headed woodpecker has some bad habits, which have
at times caused considerable damage to property, arousing the enmity
of those who have suffered from its depredations and resulting in the
destruction of large numbers of these birds. Raids on cultivated fruits
have given these woodpeckers a bad name and many have been killed by
fruit growers. Audubon (1842) asserts that as many as “a hundred have
been shot upon a single cherry tree in one day. Pears, peaches, apples,
figs, mulberries, and even peas, are thus attacked.”
They do considerable damage to pole lines by excavating their nests in
them. An editorial in The Osprey (vol. 1, p. 147) quotes, as follows,
from an article in the Kansas City Star:
The little red-headed woodpecker has become such a nuisance
on the electric lines of the metropolitan street railway
system, that it has become necessary to appoint an official
woodpecker exterminator. The title has been conferred on
Coffee Rice, an Independence young man, and yesterday
he killed nineteen of the destructive birds on the
Independence line. The woodpeckers attack the large poles
which hold up the feed cables and dig holes into the center
and downward to a depth of more than a foot. * * * The
result is that in a season the water gets into the heart of
the pole and it rots off and breaks, requiring a new pole
to be set up; whereas, ordinarily, the life of the big pole
is several years. A large number of the electric line poles
have been ruined this way, and there was a threatened loss
of many thousand dollars unless the pest was checked.
Red-headed woodpeckers seem to be oftener killed on highways by
speeding automobiles than any other species, as attested by several
observers. Dr. Dayton Stoner (1932) made some observations on this
point on an automobile trip, on July 15, 1924, for a distance of 211
miles on well-graveled roads in Iowa. He says:
En route, 105 dead animals representing fifteen species
were counted; of these, thirty-nine were red-headed
woodpeckers. The mortality in this species was higher than
for any other species of vertebrate animal noted and I
believe that several contributory factors are responsible
for it. First, these birds have a propensity for feeding
upon insects and waste grain in and along the roads;
second, they delay taking wing before the approaching car,
in all probability being poor judges of its speed; and
third, they have a slow “get-away,” that is, they can not
quickly gain sufficient speed to escape the oncoming car.
However, I feel certain that a speed as high as thirty-five
to forty miles an hour is necessary in order to overtake
these birds.
Alexander Wilson (1832) writes:
Notwithstanding the care which this bird, in common with
the rest of its genus, takes to place its young beyond the
reach of enemies, within the hollows of trees, yet there
is one deadly foe, against whose depredations neither
the height of the tree nor the depth of the cavity, is
the least security. This is the black snake (_Coluber
constrictor_), who frequently glides up the trunk of the
tree, and, like a skulking savage, enters the woodpecker’s
peaceful apartment, devours the eggs or helpless young, in
spite of the cries and fluttering of the parents; and, if
the place be large enough, coils himself up in the spot
they occupied, where he will sometimes remain for several
days.
_Fall._--The fall migration is often well marked. A. H. Helme (1882),
writing from Millers Place, Long Island, N. Y., where the bird occurs
mainly as a migrant, says:
The first one observed this season was on the 10th of
September. On the 12th I saw three, and on the 20th I saw
one. Early on the morning of the 24th of September they
began to pass over in large numbers, and continued to pass
until about 10 o’clock, after which very few were seen,
except straggling groups of three or four, and occasionally
a single one was seen to pass over during the day. The
flight must have consisted of several hundred, principally
young birds. They came from the east and were flying west.
Many of them in their flight would alight for a few minutes
in the orchards and corn fields to feed on the half-ripened
corn, or search among the apple trees for the larva or eggs
of insects but would soon continue on their journey, and
their places would be supplied by others. I noticed one
or two to dart out and seize an insect in the manner of a
flycatcher. The following day but two or three were seen. A
few stragglers, however, were occasionally met with up to
the 10th of October, and one was seen as late as the 23rd
of November.
John B. Semple (1930) writes:
On September 16, 1929, a flight of red-headed woodpeckers
(_Melanerpes erythrocephalus_) was observed passing over
the marshes at the head of Sandusky Bay, Ohio. The birds
were flying in little groups of two to five against a
stiff southwest wind heading nearly south and at an
elevation of sixty to eighty yards. Rather more than half
of them were immature birds but the old and young were not
segregated. I was hunting ducks at the time and counted
forty-eight woodpeckers passing in a little more than two
hours. They apparently came from Ontario and probably
crossed Lake Erie by way of Point Pelee and Bass Island
which would make the flight over water only about nine
miles. It was interesting to note that each successive
group of birds followed exactly the same route over the
marshes although those that had gone before were well out
of sight.
_Winter._--The red-headed woodpecker is generally considered to be
a migratory species throughout the northern portion of its breeding
range, but its movements seem to depend almost entirely on the
abundance or scarcity of its winter food supply, mainly acorns and
beechnuts; when these nuts are available in considerable quantities,
this woodpecker is to be found in reasonable numbers within its summer
range in the northern States. When Dr. C. Hart Merriam (1878) referred
to it as remaining occasionally in northern New York, Lewis County, in
winter, some of his ornithological friends were skeptical. He says:
I therefore wrote to my friend, Mr. C. L. Bagg, asking
him to send me a lot of red-headed woodpeckers as soon as
possible, and in a week’s time received a box containing
over twenty specimens,--all killed in Lewis County and when
the snow was three feet deep! This was proof positive.
Notes kept by Mr. Bagg and myself during the past six
years show that they were abundant here during the winters
1871-72, 1873-74, 1875-76, and 1877-78; while they were
rare or did not occur at all during the winters of 1872-73
and 1876-77. Their absence was in no way governed by the
severity of the winters, but entirely dependent upon the
absence of the usual supply of beechnuts. While the greater
portion of nuts fall to the ground and are buried beneath
the snow far beyond the reach of the woodpeckers, yet
enough remain on the trees all winter to furnish abundant
subsistence for those species which feed on them. * * *
During the autumn the scattered pairs for several miles
around usually congregate in some suitable wood, containing
a plenty of beech-trees, and here spend the long cold
winter in company, chattering and chasing one another about
among the trees to keep warm, and to help while away the
time. “Coe’s woods,” in this immediate vicinity, has long
been famous as the great winter resort for the red-headed
woodpeckers of the neighborhood, and it is certainly the
most suitable place for their purposes to be found for many
miles around. This piece of woods, not over an eighth of
a mile in extent, contains, besides hundreds of beeches
(_Fagus ferruginea_), a large number of elms (_Ulmus
americana_), and white ash-trees (_Fraxinus americana_) of
great size, most of the tops of which are now dead. What
more favorable location than this woods could a woodpecker
desire? Here they have beechnuts in abundance and a
bountiful supply of dead limbs and tree-tops far above the
reach of the small charges commonly used by bird-collectors.
James B. Purdy (1900) says that “the presence of the Red-headed
Woodpecker (_Melanerpes erythrocephalus_) during the winter months in
Michigan does not depend upon the temperature, but entirely upon the
food supply, viz.: the crop of acorns and beechnuts which precedes the
winter. If these nuts are plenty, the red-headed woodpeckers will
always be found during the winter months, but in no great abundance. If
there are no acorns or beechnuts, this bird will be entirely absent in
our Michigan forests.”
Robert Ridgway (1881) writes:
Ordinarily this species (_Melanerpes erythrocephalus_)
is decidedly the most numerous of the Woodpeckers in
Southeastern Illinois, while during the winter season it is
often so excessively common in the sheltered bottom-lands
as to outnumber all other species together, and, in fact,
is voted a decided nuisance by the hunter, sportsman,
or collector, on account of its well known habit of
following any one carrying a gun, and annoying him by its
continued chatter; at intervals sweeping before him and
thus diverting attention. Being at this season always
semi-gregarious, while they are of all woodpeckers the most
restless and sportive, the annoyance which they thus cause
is really no trifling matter.
Evidently, they do not always spend the winter even here, for he says:
“In the early part of October, 1879, I paid my usual yearly visit to my
old home, and scarcely had arrived at the house ere my father informed
me, as a bit of news which he was well aware would both interest and
surprise me, that the red-headed woodpeckers had all migrated; that for
a number of nights preceding he had heard overhead their well-known
notes as they winged their way to some more or less distant region; in
short, that the woods that had been their home ‘knew them now no more.’”
Even as far south as South Carolina, according to Arthur T. Wayne
(1910): “The controlling influence upon the migration of this species
in winter is the presence or absence of acorns of the live and water
oaks. If the crop of acorns is large, this woodpecker is abundant
during the winter months, but if there are no acorns, the bird is
entirely absent, no matter whether the season is mild or severe.”
DISTRIBUTION
_Range._--Southern Canada and the United States east of the Rocky
Mountains; irregularly migratory in the northern parts of its range.