The RED-HEADED BLACK WOODPECKER (_Melanerpes erythrocephalus_) is of a
bright red colour on the head and neck. The mantle, wings, and tail are
of a jetty blackness; the hinder quills, rump, and under side pure white.
The eye is brown, the beak and feet blueish black. The female is smaller
and less brightly coloured than her mate. In the young the head, throat,
mantle, and breast are of a greyish brown, marked with blackish brown,
crescent-shaped spots. The exterior quills are blackish brown, the inner
ones reddish white, striped with blackish brown towards the tip; the
tail-feathers are deep brownish black. This species is nine inches long
and seventeen broad; the wing measures four inches and five-sixths, and
the tail two inches and three-quarters.
"The Red-heads," says Audubon, "may be considered as residents of the
Northern States, inasmuch as many of them remain in the southern districts
during the whole winter, and breed there in summer; the greater number,
however, pass to countries farther south. Their migration takes place at
night, is commenced in the middle of September, and is continued for a
month or six weeks. They then fly high above the trees, far apart, like a
disbanded army, propelling themselves by reiterated flaps of the wing at
the end of each successive curve which they describe in their flight. The
note which they emit at this time is different from the usual one--sharp
and easily heard from the ground, although the birds may be out of sight;
this note is continued as if it were necessary for keeping the straggling
party in good humour. At dawn of day the whole alight on the tops of the
dead trees about the plantations, and remain in search of food until the
approach of sunset, when they again, one after the other, mount the air
and continue their journey.
"With the exception of the Mocking Bird, I know no species so gay and
frolicsome; 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 just 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 upon the success of their cunning.
Should you approach within arm's length, the Woodpecker flies to the next
stake from you, bends to peep and rattle again, as if to provoke you to
a continuance of what seems to him excellent sport. No sooner are the
cherries ripe than these birds attack them; and I may safely say that a
hundred have been shot on one tree during a single day. Pears, peaches,
apples, figs, mulberries, even peas are also thus attacked. They have
another bad habit--that of sucking the eggs of small birds, and are
often successful in entering the pigeon-houses; the corn as it ripens
is laid bare by their bill, when they feed on the top parts of the ear.
All this while the Red-heads are full of gaiety. No sooner have they
satisfied their hunger than small parties of them assemble in the tops
and branches of decayed trees, from which they chase different insects,
launching after them for eight or ten yards, at times performing the most
singular manœuvres; and on securing their victim return to the tree, where
immediately after a cry of exultation is heard. They chase each other in
a very amicable manner, in long beautifully-curved sweeps, during which
the remarkable variety of their plumage becomes conspicuous. When passing
from one tree to another their flight resembles the motion of a swing.
They move upwards, sidewise, or backwards without apparent effort, but
seldom with the head downwards. Their manner of curving from one tree to
another is frequently performed as if they intended to attack a bird of
their own species, and it is amusing to see the activity with which the
latter baffles his antagonist, as he scrambles sidewise down the tree with
astonishing celerity; in the same manner in which one of these birds,
suspecting a man armed with a gun, will keep winding round the trunk of a
tree, until a good opportunity presents itself for sailing off to another.
In this manner a man may follow from one tree to another over a whole
field without procuring a shot, unless he watches his opportunity, and
fires while the bird is on the wing. On the ground this species is by no
means awkward, and hops with perfect ease after the beetles it has espied
while perching on a tree or fence.
"It is seldom that a nest newly perforated by these birds is found, as
they generally resort to those of preceding years. These holes are found
often to the number of ten or a dozen in a single decayed trunk. So few
green or living trees are perforated for this purpose by this species that
I have never myself seen a single instance. In Louisiana and Kentucky the
Red-headed Woodpecker rears two broods every year, in the middle districts
more generally only one. The female lays from two to six eggs, which are
pure white and translucent, sometimes in holes not six feet from the
ground, sometimes as high as possible. The young birds have the upper part
of the head at first grey; but towards autumn the red begins to appear.
During the first winter the red is richly intermixed with grey, and at
the approach of spring scarcely any difference is perceptible between
the sexes. The flesh of the Red-head is tough, and smells so strongly of
the ants and other insects on which it feeds as to be scarcely eatable.
In Kentucky and the Southern States many of these birds are killed in
the following manner:--As soon as they have begun to visit an apple or
cherry tree a pole is placed along the trunk, passing up among the central
branches, and extending six or seven feet beyond the highest twigs. The
Red-head alights by preference on the pole, and while its body is close
to it a man standing beneath gives the pole a smart blow with the head of
an axe, on the opposite side to that on which the Woodpecker is, when, in
consequence of the sudden violent vibration produced in the upper part,
the bird is thrown off dead."
"So common are these birds," says Wilson, "that wherever there is a tree
of the wild cherry covered with ripe fruit there you see them busy amongst
the branches; and in passing orchards you may readily know where to find
the sweetest apples by observing those trees on or near which a Red-head
is skulking; for so excellent a connoisseur is he in fruit that wherever
an apple or pear tree is found broached by him it is sure to be the ripest
and best flavoured. When alarmed at his work he secures a fine one by
striking his bill deep into it, and bears it off into the woods.
"Notwithstanding the care," continues the same writer, "which this bird,
in common with the rest of the genus, takes to place its young beyond the
reach of enemies, within the hollows of trees, there is one deadly enemy
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, creeps into the Woodpecker's peaceful abode, devours
the eggs and helpless young, in spite of the cries and flutterings of the
parents, and, if the place be large enough, coils himself up in the spot
they occupied, where he will often remain for several days. The eager
school-boy, often hazarding his neck to reach the Woodpecker's hole, at
the triumphant moment when he thinks the nestlings his own, strips his
arm, launching it down the cavity, and grasps what he imagines to be the
callow young, starts with horror at the sight of a hideous shape, and
retreats down the tree with terrified precipitation. Several adventures
of this kind have come to my knowledge, and one of them was attended with
serious consequences--both snake and boy fell to the ground; and a broken
thigh and long confinement cured the youngster of his ambition for robbing
Woodpeckers' nests."