WOODPECKERS 



147 



The White-headed Woodpecker is a typical 

 bird of the yellow pine timber, ranging from the 

 mountains of southern British Columbia through 

 Oregon and Idaho and cs])i'cially along the east- 

 ern slopes of the Cascades and Sierra Nevadas. 

 The bird gets its food from insects in the bark 

 of the pine, not so much by boring into the tree 

 as by prying off the scales or layers of the bark. 



many short stubs of small broken branches pro- 

 jecting an inch or two from the main trunk. 

 When the sun is shining, these projections are 

 lighted up in such a manner as to appear quite 

 white at a little distance, and they often cast 

 a shadow resembling the black body of the bird. 

 In winter when a little snow has lodged on these 

 stubs, the resemblance is even greater, and almost 



Drawing by R. I. Brasher 



WHITE-HEADED WOODPECKER (3 nat. size) 

 A quiet worker among the yellow pine timber 



It is a quiet worker and eats a great number of 

 larvae that tunnel into the bark and the other 

 insects that crawl under the scales of the bark 

 for shelter in winter. 



Dr. James C. Merrill says : " One would think- 

 that the peculiar coloration of the White-headed 

 Woodpecker would make it very conspicuous and 

 its detection an easy matter, but this is by no 

 means the case, at least about Fort Klamath. 

 On most of the pines in this vicinity there are 

 Vol. II — II 



daily I was misled by this deceptive appearance, 

 either mistaking a stub for a bird or the reverse." 

 Mrs. Florence Merriam Bailey records much 

 the same experience with this bird. " Impossible 

 as it would seem at first sight, I have found that 

 the snow-white head often serves the bird as a 

 disguise. It is the disguise of color pattern, for 

 the black body seen against a tree trunk becomes 

 one of the black streaks or shadows of the bark, 

 and the white head is cut off as a detached white 



