[Illustration: Fig. 20.--Hairy woodpecker. Length, about 9 inches.]
Five or six species of woodpeckers are familiarly known throughout the
eastern United States, and In the West are replaced by others of similar
habits. Several species remain in the Northern States through the entire
year, while others are more or less migratory.
Farmers are prone to look upon woodpeckers with suspicion. When the birds
are seen scrambling over fruit trees and pecking holes in the bark, it
is concluded that they must be doing harm. Careful observers, however,
have noticed that, excepting a single species, these birds rarely leave
any conspicuous mark on a healthy tree, except when it is affected by
wood-boring larvæ, which are accurately located, dislodged, and devoured
by the woodpecker.
Two of the best-known woodpeckers, the hairy woodpecker[55] (fig.
20) and the downy woodpecker,[56] including their races, range over
the greater part of the United States. They differ chiefly in size,
their colors being practically the same. The males, like those of
many other woodpeckers, are distinguished by a scarlet patch on the
head. An examination of many stomachs of these two species shows that
from two-thirds to three-fourths of the food consists of insects,
chiefly noxious kinds. Wood-boring beetles, both adults and larvæ, are
conspicuous, and with them are associated many caterpillars, mostly
species that burrow into trees. Next in importance are the ants that
live in decaying wood, all of which are sought by woodpeckers and eaten
in great quantities. Many ants are particularly harmful to timber, for
if they find a small spot of decay in the vacant burrow of a wood borer,
they enlarge the hole, and, as their colony is always on the increase,
continue to eat away the wood until the whole trunk is honeycombed.
Moreover, they are not accessible to birds generally, and could pursue
their career of destruction unmolested were it not that the woodpeckers,
with beaks and tongues especially fitted for such work, dig out and
devour them. It is thus evident that woodpeckers are great conservators
of forests. To them more than to any other agency we owe the preservation
of timber from hordes of destructive insects.
[55] _Dryobates villosus_.
[56] _Dryobates pubecens_.
[Illustration: Fig. 21.--Flicker. Length, about 12½ inches.]
One of the larger woodpeckers familiar to everyone is the flicker, or
golden-winged woodpecker[57] (fig. 21), which is generally distributed
throughout the United States from the Atlantic coast to the Rocky
Mountains. There it is replaced by the red-shafted flicker,[58] which
extends westward to the Pacific. The two species are as nearly identical
in food habits as their respective environments will allow. The flickers,
while genuine woodpeckers, differ somewhat in habits from the rest of
the family, and are frequently seen searching for food upon the ground.
Like the downy and hairy woodpeckers, they feed upon wood-boring grubs
and ants, but the number of ants eaten is much greater than that eaten
by the other two species. Of the flickers' stomachs examined, three were
completely filled with ants. Two of these contained more than 3,000
individuals each, while the third contained fully 5,000. These ants
belong to species which live in the ground. It is these insects for
which the flicker searches when it runs about in the grass, although
some grasshoppers also are then taken. The flicker's habit of pecking
holes in buildings sometimes greatly annoys its human friends, and it
is particularly noticeable in the California species. Observation has
shown that the object of the work is to obtain shelter for the winter.
In the East most of the flickers are migratory, and only a few remain
North where shelter is necessary. These generally find a safe retreat
in the hollow tree In which they nested. In California, however, where
the birds do not migrate, trees are not so abundant as in the East, and
consequently buildings are brought into requisition, and in them holes
are drilled, usually under the eaves, where snug nights' lodgings are
found. Often a dozen holes may be seen in one building. Barns or other
outbuildings are usually selected, though churches sometimes have been
used.
[57] _Colaptes auratus_.
[58] _Colaptes cafer collaris_.
[Illustration: Fig. 22.--Red-headed woodpecker. Length, about 9½
inches.]
The red-headed woodpecker[59] (fig. 22) is well known east of the Rocky
Mountains, but Is rather rare in New England. Unlike some of the other
species, it prefers fence posts and telegraph poles to trees as a
foraging ground. Its food therefore naturally differs from that of the
preceding species, and consists largely of adult beetles and wasps which
it frequently captures on the wing after the fashion of flycatchers.
Grasshoppers also form an important part of the food. Among the beetles
are a number of predacious ground species and some tiger beetles, which
are useful insects. The red-head has been accused of robbing nests of
other birds, and of pecking out the brains of young birds and poultry;
but as the stomachs showed little evidence to substantiate this charge,
the habit probably is exceptional.
[59] _Melanerpes erythrocephalus_.
The vegetable food of woodpeckers is varied, but consists largely of
small fruits and berries. The downy and hairy woodpeckers eat such
fruits as dogwood and Virginia creeper and seeds of poison ivy, sumac,
and a few other shrubs. The flicker also eats a great many small fruits
and the seeds of a considerable number of shrubs and weeds. None of
the three species is much given to eating cultivated fruits or crops.
The red-head has been accused of eating the larger kinds of fruit, as
apples, and also of taking considerable corn. Stomach examinations show
that to some extent these charges are substantiated, but that the habit
is not prevalent enough to cause much damage. The bird is fond of mast,
especially beechnuts, and when these nuts are plentiful it remains north
all winter.
Woodpeckers apparently are the only agents which can successfully cope
with certain insect enemies of the forest, and, to some extent, with
those of fruit trees also. For this reason, if for no other, they should
be protected in every possible way.