102 BULLETIN 17 4, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



It is interesting to see him explore cracks in the bark. Standing on 

 the edge he pokes his head into the dark cavern, turning it from one 

 side to the other inquiringly." 

 Grinnell and Storer (1924) write: 



At Tamarack Flat, on May 26, 1919, a female white-headed woodpecker was 

 seen to flush from her nest about ten feet above ground in a dead pine stub. 

 Tapping by one of us on a nearby bole had caused her to leave, but she returned 

 to the vicinity almost immediately. Then, for fully 25 minutes, while the 

 observer remained within watching distance the bird foraged, preened, and 

 flew about from one to another of the circle of 8 or 10 trees within a 50-foot 

 radius of the nest, but always kept the nest tree in her sight. About every 5 

 minutes she would fly to the nest. In approaching it, she would swoop below 

 its level and then glide up to the site with decreasing speed so as to end her 

 flight with little, or no momentum. Then, having gained claw-hold, she would 

 poke the fore part of her body into the hole, withdraw it at once and repeat 

 this performance four or five times before flying away again. Finally, after 

 fully half an hour had elapsed, and her suspicions had been allayed, she went in, 

 to remain. During this entire time the male kept out of sight and was heard 

 only twice. 



Van Kossem and Pierce (1915) noted its manner of drinking, thus: 

 "White-headed woodpeckers were often observed to drink at a small 

 stream near our camp at Bear Lake, where a pine sapling grew from 

 the edge of a small pool. On this sapling the birds would alight, 

 usually about three feet from the base, 'hitch' quickly backwards down 

 the trunk to the water, and, leaning sharply to one side, drink by 

 quick, nervous dips." 



Another method of drinking is described by Grinnell, Dixon, and 

 Linsdale (1930), as follows: "In mid-afternoon one flew down from a 

 yellow pine to some shallow, running water in an open roadside near 

 Mineral. It alighted in a horizontal position on the ground and 

 dipped its bill into the water six times. After each dip the bird 

 raised its bill skyward at an angle of fully eighty degrees from the 

 horizontal. After drinking, the bird flew to a prostrate log, and for- 

 aged horizontally along its lower curvature." 



Some observers seem to think that the white-headed woodpecker 

 rarely, if ever, drums on tree trunks, but seeks its food more quietly ; 

 but Alexander Sprunt, Jr., tells me that the birds he saw in Oregon 

 "drummed and beat upon the tree trunks and telephone poles at the 

 roadside, exactly as any other woodpecker." Clarence F. Smith 

 writes to me that "one male bird was a regular overnight guest, hang- 

 ing to the ridgepole of our cabin, outside the wall, just beneath the 

 eaves. He never made any attempt to drill the wood there." 



Voice.—Grumoll and Storer (1924) say that "the usual call note of 

 this woodpecker is a single tviek, but when excited, the female calls 

 cheep-eep-eep-eep, very fast, and repeats the call every few seconds. 

 The male, under similar circumstances calls yip, yip, yip, yip, in a 

 much shriller tone, but in slower time." Mr. Dawson (1923) once 



