CALIFORNIA WOODPECKER 215 



the male (^ame, he stood on one side of the hole and I heard him give low, 

 guttural notes. * * * Presently, the truant young, for such he proved to be, 

 appeared in the doorway and, with open mouth, begged for just one bite. ♦ * * 

 But the old bird was unrelenting and stayed in his position by the hole until 

 the bird inside, which was undoubtedly a former nestling, came out and flew 

 onto the wire above, when the adult male went within. 



Just to prove that he was not all baby, the former nestling turned in and 

 helped feed. Several times he went into the hole and came directly out, and 

 I might have thought that he was in there in hopes of getting fed had I not 

 distinctly seen a big fly in his bill as he entered. Each time as he bobbed into 

 the hole several white bars showed plainly on the underside of the outer tail 

 feathers. It was this marking of a young bird which convinced me that he 

 was a former nestling. In every other respect he resembled a male California 

 Woodpecker. Once more, during my watching, he slipped into the nest, staying 

 eight minutes before they got him out. The first time it had been twenty minutes. 



From the above, and from the observations of Frank A. Leach 

 (1925), to be referred to later, it seems that the California woodpecker 

 often, if not regularly, raises two or even three broods in a season. 



Plumages. — The young are hatched naked and blind, but the juvenal 

 plumage is acquired before the young bird leaves the nest. In this 

 plumage the young male closely resembles the adult male and the 

 young female is much like the adult female in general color pattern, 

 but the red of the crown and nape is duller and more or less mixed 

 with dusky or black; sometimes the crown is nearly all black mixed 

 with some scarlet feathers; the colors everywhere are duller, lacking 

 in gloss, and the plumage is softer, less firm ; the yellow of the throat 

 is less pronounced ; the streaks on the breast are less sharply defined ; 

 the tertials and scapulars are tipped with white, and there are narrow 

 white tips on the two outer tail feathers on each side, but these tips 

 wear away during winter, or sooner; there are at least two white 

 spots on each web of the outer tail feather, which are in evidence all 

 through the first year; as the juvenal wings and tail are retained until 

 the next summer molt, birds of the year may be thus recognized ; the 

 bill is smaller and weaker than that of the adult. The molt of the 

 juvenal contour plumage begins in August or September. 



Adults have a complete annual molt between July and September, 

 mainly in August. 



Food. — Some prominent California ornithologists have named this 

 bird the "California acorn-storing woodpecker," a rather long but very 

 appropriate name, for it designates one of its most characteristic 

 habits and names the largest item in its food supply. W. L. Dawson 

 (1923) has this to say on the subject : 



From time immemorial this bird has riddled the bark of certain forest trees 

 and stuffed the holes with acorns. Speculation is still rife as to the cause or 

 occasion or necessity or purpose of this strange practice, but the fact is indis- 

 putable and the evidence of it widely diffused. * ♦ * 



What he accomplishes the photographs show well enough, — the close, methodi- 

 cal studding of bark or wood of any kind with acorns, chiefly those of live-oaks, 



