Red-headed Woodpecker at Camden, N. J. 



217 



hole, and decided that the young Woodpeckers had left. On investigation, 

 I found two of them in company with one of the parents, a short distance 

 from the nesting-tree. 



The old birds fed the young at varying intervals, sometimes going to the 

 nest once in every three or four minutes for a half hour, then not appearing 



again for fifteen or twenty min- 

 utes. Quite in contrast, was the 

 methodical feeding of their neigh- 

 bors, the Starlings, who averaged 

 once in four or five minutes any 

 time of the day I happened to be 

 in the neighl)orhood. 



On one occasion, when I 

 watched the Woodpeckers until 

 dark, I found that one went to 

 roost in the nesting -hole about 

 dusk, and the other, probably the 

 male, shortly after went into an 

 old hole in the same dead tree, 

 • higher up. 



The Sparrows bothered the 

 Woodpeckers somewhat. At times, 

 when a sparrow became too in- 

 quisitive, the Woodpecker would 

 dive at him and bear him clear 

 down to the ground; there the 

 matter would end, the Sparrow 

 rapidly flying away, and the 

 Woodpecker flying back to the 

 nest, where possibly another for- 

 eigner would be on deck, to be 

 dealt with in the same way. By 

 the time the second brood was 

 well under way, the Sparrows, as 

 well as all other birds in the 

 vicinity, seemed to have learned 

 the lesson of "no trespass" and the Red -heads had everything their 

 own way. 



To my regret, I was unable to determine the number of young in each 

 brood, on account of the character of the tree in which the nest was located. 

 However, I am pretty certain that the second brood consisted of two birds 

 only, as this was all I ever saw at one time. 



REU-HEAI>ED WOODPECKER 

 Photographed by the author 



