The Hairy Woodpecker {Dryobates viiiosus) 



By Charles Bendire 



Length : 8^ inches. 



Range : Northern and middle portions of the United States from the 

 Atlantic Coast to the Great Plains. 



Food : Insects, chiefly noxious ; beetles, caterpillars, ants. Truly a con- 

 servator of forests. 



The hairy woodpecker is fairly common through the wooded regions of 

 our northern and middle states, and in winter is occasionally found in some 

 of the southern states — Louisiana, for instance. It is a resident in the mountain- 

 ous regions of North Carolina, while in the lowlands it is replaced by a smaller 

 southern race. It is a hardy bird, and intense cold does not appear to affect 

 it much. 



As a rule the hairy woodpecker is rather unsocial, and unless followed 

 by their young more than a pair are rarely seen together. It does not live 

 in harmony with smaller species of its own kind, and drives them away when 

 they encroach on its feeding grounds, being exceedingly greedy in disposition 

 and always hungry. It is partial to timbered river bottoms, the outskirts of 

 forests and occasionally it makes its home in old orchards and in rather open, 

 cultivated country, interspersed here and there with isolated clumps of trees. 

 It is also found in the midst of extended forest regions. 



The hairy woodpecker, like most of its relatives, is an exceedingly bene- 

 ficial and useful bird, which rids our orchards and forests of innumerable 

 injurious larvae, like those of the boring beetles, which burrow in the wood and 

 between the bark and trunk of trees. It never attacks a sound tree. Although 

 commonly known as Sapsucker, this name is very inappropriate. It is not 

 in search of sap, but of such grubs as are found only in decaying wood. Never- 

 theless it is exceedingly difficult to make the average farmer believe this, and 

 in winter when these birds are more often seen about the vicinity of dwellings 

 and the neighboring orchards than at any other , season of the year, many are 

 shot under the erroneous belief that they injure the very trees they are doing 

 their best to protect. 



The food of this bird, besides larvae, consists of various species of small 

 beetles, spiders, flies, ants, and in winter when such food is scarce to some extent 

 of seeds and grain, and less often of nuts and acorns. I have seen it cling to 

 fresh hides hung up to dry, picking off small articles of fat and meat, and in 

 summer occasionally eats a few berries of different kinds. In the fall of 

 the year it can often be seen inspecting old fence-posts and telegraph poles, 

 probably on the lookout for cocoons, spider eggs, etc. 



Like all the woodpeckers, it is an expert climber, and moves rapidly up 

 and around trees in short hops. It is equally easy for it to go backward or 

 sidewise, and it is astonishing how rapidly it can move in any direction. The 



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