MORE ABOUT WOODPECKERS
“The commonest of our woodpeckers is the green woodpecker, which is
about as large as a turtle-dove. Its plumage has a richness rarely seen
in that of any of our other birds. The top of the head and the nape of
the neck are of a magnificent crimson; two mustaches of the same hue
adorn the bird’s face; the back is green, the breast and stomach
yellowish white, the rump yellow, and the large wing-feathers black
with regular marks of white on the edge. The female has less brilliant
coloring than the male and its mustaches are black instead of red.
“It is the green woodpecker that you heard in the grove this morning,
giving its cry of teo, teo, teo. I will not go over what Jacques has
already told you about its different cries. The green woodpecker is
passionately fond of ants, and when it discovers an ant-hill it posts
itself near by and stretches its long viscous tongue across the path
the ants follow. You know these little creatures’ way of marching in
long files, one or more, following the exact path taken by the leaders.
The woodpecker’s viscous tongue is extended across this line of march.
The ants from behind come up, hesitate a moment before the barricade,
and then venture upon the tongue, in order to follow their friends
marching on ahead as if nothing had happened. Immediately we have one
ant caught, then four, then ten, all struggling in the sticky mucilage
covering the tongue. The woodpecker does not move, but remains quiet
until its tongue is quite covered. Nor has it long to wait. Soon the
living trap, laden with game, is withdrawn into the beak. Ah, that was
a luscious mouthful! Without leaving the spot the ant-eater repeats
this performance again and again, laying its tongue on the ground and
then drawing it in black with ants, until its hunger is satisfied.”
“Animals know more than one would think, as you said a while ago,”
Emile remarked. “That trick of the woodpecker’s shows it plainly
enough. Instead of picking the ants up one by one, which would be very
slow work with such small game, the woodpecker takes them dozens at a
time. It lays its tongue across their path on the ground, draws it in
again when it is all plastered over with ants, and the thing is done.
And the mouthful is well worth the trouble. Who would have thought of
making a trap of one’s tongue, a trap that catches game with glue?”
“But its passion for ants,” resumed Uncle Paul, “does not make the
woodpecker neglect its duty as keeper of forests. It goes climbing up
tree trunks, tapping the sickly parts, and pecking away with blows that
at a distance sound like hammer strokes. If a passer-by interrupts it
at its work it does not immediately fly away, but runs around the trunk
like a squirrel, and from the other side sticks out its head a little
to see who or what is coming. If the intruder advances, the woodpecker
goes on around the tree, always keeping on the opposite side until it
becomes frightened, when it flies off, making the woods ring with its
sonorous tiackackan, tiackackan. It flies with swift darts and bounds,
swooping down, then rising, describing a series of undulating arches in
the air.
“For its nest it bores out a deep hole in soft-wood trees such as firs
and poplars. Male and female work with lusty blows of the beak, taking
turns at the hardest part of the task, the piercing of the live wood of
the trunk, until the worm-eaten center is reached. Chips, wood-dust,
and decayed fragments are dug out with the feet, and at last the hole
is deep enough and slanting enough to exclude the light of day. The
young ones leave the nest before they can fly, and they may be seen
exercising near it, learning to climb, to run around the trunk of their
tree, and to cling to it upside down. You will be amused to watch them
if you ever have the good fortune to be present at the frolics of a
young family of woodpeckers.
“The great spotted woodpecker is about as large as a thrush. It has a
wide red stripe across the nape of the neck, the upper part of the body
is prettily spotted with pure white and deep black, and the under part
is white as far as the abdomen, which is red, as is also the rump. The
female has no red on the nape of the neck. The food of this bird is the
same as the green woodpecker’s. It strikes the tree with quicker,
smarter blows, and if disturbed in its work it remains motionless in
the shelter of a large branch with its green eyes fixed on the object
of its distrust. Its cry is a kind of hoarse, grinding
trer-rer-rer-rer.
“The variegated woodpecker much resembles the great spotted woodpecker
in plumage, but is a little smaller. It is adorned with a red cap which
covers the whole of the upper part and the back of the head, while the
great spotted woodpecker has only a stripe of this color on the nape of
the neck. Both these birds are found in the large wooded districts of
France, and they live on the same diet,—insects, wood-boring larvæ, and
ants. Also, because of their velvet costume of black and white and
their scarlet cap, they are both to be ranked among the prettiest birds
we have.
“Let us add to them the little spotted woodpecker. It is smaller than a
sparrow, and its dress is that of the great spotted woodpecker. This
bird is found almost exclusively in the fir forests of the East and of
the Pyrenees.
“The wryneck is closely akin to the woodpeckers in the structure of its
feet, whose four toes or talons are divided into two pairs, one
pointing forward and the other backward, and in its very long and
viscous tongue which it pushes into ant-hills or stretches out on the
ground to receive the insects as they pass. It is a small bird, being
no larger than a lark. Its plumage is watered with black, brown, gray,
and russet, somewhat like the woodcock’s, but with tints better defined
and more beautiful in their combined effect. The wryneck is a great
eater of caterpillars, and it is also passionately fond of ants, which
it catches as does the woodpecker, with its sticky tongue laid on the
ground across their path. Its name comes from the habit it has of
twisting its neck and looking backward with a sort of slow and
undulating movement like a snake’s.”
“Why does it imitate a snake like that?” Emile inquired.
“It is its way of expressing surprise and alarm; and perhaps it also
hopes to frighten its foe with the motions. At any rate, it is
sometimes successful. If a birdnest-hunter climbs up to its hole to
steal its little ones, the wryneck emits, from the depths of its
retreat, a sharp hissing and begins to make snake-like movements with
its neck. The young birds, still featherless, imitate their mother to
the best of their ability, and succeed so well that the hunter thinks
he has thrust his hand into a nest of writhing and twisting flat-headed
vipers. Thoroughly frightened, the boy clambers down, not without
leaving some shreds of his breeches on the way.”
“Serves the rascal right, too,” declared Emile.
“The wryneck reaches us in April and leaves toward the end of summer.
It haunts the outskirts of woods and visits gardens and orchards for
caterpillars. It nests in a hole in a tree trunk and gladly avails
itself of the woodpecker’s abandoned quarters after furbishing them up
a little to suit itself. The eggs, which are white and polished like
the woodpecker’s, rest on a simple little bed of wood-dust that the
bird dislodges from the walls of its hole with a few blows of its beak.
“Despite the structure of its feet, the wryneck does not climb tree
trunks and rarely even perches on them, preferring to stay on the
ground and hunt caterpillars or stretch out its tongue in the ants’
path, which has given it, in the South, the name of stretch-tongue.
“The nuthatch, on the contrary, though differing from the woodpecker in
the formation of its claws, is a first-rate climber and spends its life
running about on the trunks of trees, inspecting every crack and cranny
for insects and pecking at the old bark. Three of its talons point
forward, the fourth alone being turned in the opposite direction; but
for firmness of support the last is worth two of the others, so thick
and powerful is it, and the nail at the end so strong and hooked. The
beak resembles the woodpecker’s, being straight, fluted lengthwise, and
sharply pointed. It is an excellent tool for digging into wood and
getting out the worms. The tongue cannot be projected like the
woodpecker’s to catch insects with its glue, nor does the tail serve as
a support.
“The nuthatch examines old trees with painstaking care, going up and
down the trunk repeatedly, or around it in a spiral, and sometimes
visiting a branch above or below or on one side. Every crack is
explored with the point of the beak, to the accompaniment of the bird’s
resonant cry, tuee, tuee, tuee, repeated again and again in a
penetrating tone. Very few insects can escape so careful a search. If
grubs are lacking, the nuthatch makes a frugal meal of a hazelnut.
First it fixes the nut firmly in the fork made by two branches, and
then it hammers away at it, encouraging itself the while by uttering
its cry, until the hard shell is pierced and the kernel exposed.”
“It must take the bird a long time to crack a hazelnut with its beak,”
was the opinion of Jules.
“No, it is done very quickly, the beak is so hard and pointed. Very
quickly, too, a caged nuthatch will break through the woodwork of its
prison and make an opening large enough to escape through. Not even the
woodpecker has a better carpenter’s chisel.
“The nuthatch is about as large as a sparrow. All the upper part of its
plumage is of a bluish ash color, the throat and cheeks are white, and
the breast and stomach red. A black stripe, starting from the corner of
the beak, passes over the eye and down the side of the neck. This bird
nests in a hole in a tree trunk and it knows how, if need be, to make
the opening of the nest smaller with a little moistened clay. Its eggs,
from five to seven in number, are laid on moss or wood-dust and are of
a dingy white dotted with red. It gets its name of nuthatch (which
means nuthacker) from its way of hacking the nuts it is so fond of.”