SONGLESS BIRDS. Woodpeckers 



Eggs : 5, clear white, but, according to Samuels, owing to their 

 transparency, they have a pink tint before they are blown. 



Bange: Middle portion of the eastern United States from the Atlan- 

 tic coast to the Great Plains. 



The Hairy Woodpecker is a common bird in wooded 

 regions, especially where partly decayed trees have been 

 left standing. Its creeping motion when scanning tree 

 trunks for insects resembles that of the Black-and-white 

 Warbler. Though it is abundant, it is shy in the breeding- 

 season and keeps to secluded woodlands, but in the fall and 

 winter conies freely to orchards and about houses. It has 

 an affection for particular trees and often uses the same 

 tree, if not perhaps the same hole, for several successive 

 seasons. 



Eight years ago I noticed this species in May in Samp- 

 Mortar woods, a wild, rocky place, covered with laurel and 

 abounding in the rarer ferns. From the crest of Mortar 

 Rock I could look into the top of a tall hickory, in which a 

 Hairy Woodpecker was boring. A few years later, at the 

 same season, I found a similar bird nesting in the same 

 tree and there were three holes visible in the trunk. This 

 year I went to the place early in June. The tree was 

 entirely dead and branchless from winter storms, the top 

 had crumbled away so that light came through the upper 

 holes, there were five apertures in all, and from the lowest 

 of these flew a Hairy Woodpecker, and when I beat on the 

 tree with a stick the clamouring inside told that the young 

 were hatched. 



On seeing me the bird went into one of the empty holes 

 and then flew to a little distance and, joined by the male, 

 refused to go near the nest while I remained. The tree was 

 so shaky that it swayed with every breeze, and it is the last 

 year that it will shelter its black-and-white tenants. The 

 red head band is not very conspicuous in this Woodpecker 

 unless you look at it from above or catch a glimpse of it 

 when the bird is going up the tree trunk. 



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