RED-HEADED WOODPECKER 201 



that they in vain tried to get free. I told this to a couple of farmers, and 

 found that they had also seen the same thing, and showed me the posts which 

 were used for the same purpose. Later in the season the Woodpecker, whose 

 station was near my house, commeuced to use his stores, and to-day (February 

 10) there are only a few shrivelled-up grasshoppers left. 



Milton P. Skinner (1928), referring to the feeding habits of this 

 woodpecker in North Carolina, writes: 



Flying insects are an important source of food supply all through the winter, 

 but with the increase of the number of insects in March this activity greatly 

 increases. The observation post for fly-catching is usually the one in which 

 the nest hole is situated. But I noted at least one bird that used four tall trees 

 in succession for this purpose. Ou February 1, 1927, a red-headed woodpecker 

 was seen clinging to the side of a telephone pole. Twice it left the iwle, flew 

 out twenty feet, caught an insect each time, and returned to the pole to eat it. 

 Two weeks later another bird was seen to make six trips similarly out and 

 back during six minutes, sometimes going more than a hundred feet from its 

 perch. As the bird went direct to the insect, caught it and returned immediately 

 to its perch, it seemed likely that the insect was seen each time before the bird 

 started, indicating wonderful eyesight. While not engaged in thus hawking, this 

 bird hunted the limbs for prey. Ten days later I found this bird watching 

 for insects and making ten fly-catching sallies in minute and a half. Its 

 flights were from ten to one hundred and fifty feet in length, and all the insects 

 were from forty to sixty feet above the ground. One of the redheads seen 

 fly-catching in December, returned to its dead stub where It drilled for grubs 

 and borers in the usual woodpecker fashion, except that its strokes were heavy 

 and deliberate. On another occasion, I saw one of these birds fly down into 

 the road to catch and eat an earthworm. 



E. D. Nauman (1930), in Iowa, watched a red-headed woodpecker 

 feeding a young bird in the top of a tall tree. "The adult bird was 

 at work, darting off every few moments into the air in pursuit of 

 insects and returning after each flight to the young bird on the 

 tree with its prey. I watched and timed it carefully for an hour. 

 It made from five to seven trips per minute, always at an elevation of 

 50 to 100 feet, and caught at each trip from one to three or more 

 insects. * * * 



"A computation based upon careful observation showed that a 

 single individual Redhead had destroyed over 600 insects in one hour. 

 When I left, the bird was still at work, and I am, of course, unable 

 to state how long it had been at work at this place before I came 

 there." 



A. V. Goodpasture (1909), of Nashville, Tenn., made some inter- 

 esting observations on the feeding habits of this woodpecker. He 

 watched one preparing insect food for its young on a stump, some 4 

 feet high, near its nest, and says : 



When one of the woodpeckers came in, it did not go directly to the nest, 



but always alighted first on this stump, where it hammered away for a time, 



then proceeded to the nest with a shapeless mass in its beak. My glass having 



failed to disclose their object in thus lighting and hammering on the stump 



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