88 Bird - Lore 



of the many Woodpecker holes in sight belonged to them I had to make a tour 

 of the grove. 



On its edge was a promising old stub with a number of big, round holes 

 and, picking up a stick, I rapped on the trunk. Both birds were over my head 

 in an instant, rattling and scolding till you would have thought I had come to 

 chop down the tree and carry off the young before their eyes. I felt injured, 

 but having found the nest could afford to watch from a distance. 



It was not long before the old birds began feeding their young. They would 

 fly to the stub and stand under the nest while rousing the brood by rattling into 

 the hole, which had the odd effect of mufffng their voices. When, as they flew 

 back and forth a Yellow-hammer stopped in passing, they drove him off in 

 a hurry. They wanted that grove to themselves. 



On my next visits, if, in spite of many precautions, they discovered me, 

 they flew to dead tree tops to watch me, or startled me by an angry quarr' quarr' 

 quarr' over my head. When they found that I made no attempt to go near the 

 nest, however, they finally put up with me and went about their business. 



After being at the nest together they would often fly off in opposite directions, 

 to hunt on different beats. If one hunted in the grove, the other would go out 

 to the rail fence. A high maple was a favorite lookout and hunting-ground for 

 the one who stayed in the grove, and cracks in the bark afforded good places 

 to wedge insects into. The bird who hunted on the fence, if suspecting a grub 

 in a rail, would stand as motionless as a Robin on the grass, apparently listening; 

 but when the right moment came would drill down rapidly and spear the grub. 

 If an insect passed that way the Redhead would make a sally into the air for 

 it, sometimes shooting straight up for fifteen or twenty feet and coming down 

 almost as straight; at others flying out and back in an ellipse, horizontally or 

 obliquely up in the air or down over the ground. But oftener than all, perhaps, 

 it flew down onto the ground to pick up something which its sharp eyes had 

 discovered there. Once it brought up some insect, hit it against the rail, gave 

 a business-like hop and flew off to feed its young. 



The young left the nest between my visits, but when, chancing to focus my 

 glass on a passing Woodpecker I discovered that its head was gray instead of 

 red, I knew for a certainty what had happened. The fledgling seemed already 

 much at home on its wings. It flew out into the air, caught a white miller and 

 went back to the tree with it, shaking it and then rapping it vigorously against 

 a branch before venturing to swallow it. When the youngster flew, I followed, 

 rousing a Robin who made such an outcry that one of the old Redheads flew 

 over in alarm. " Kik-a-rik, kik-a-rik,'' it cried as it hurried from tree to tree, 

 trying to keep an eye on me while looking for the youngster. Neither of us 

 could find it for some time, but after looking in vain over the west side of a big 

 tree I rounded the trunk and found it calmly sitting on a branch on the east 

 side — which goes to prove that it is never safe to say a Woodpecker isn't on 

 a tree, till vou have seen both sides! 



