THE RED-HEADED WOODPECKER. HI 



broods in a season, but in the northern parts of its range it raises only one. While 

 stationed at Camp Harney, Oregon, I was miK^h surprised to see a headdress of a 

 prominent Pah-Ute chief profusely decorated with a number of the heads of the 

 Red-headed Woodpecker, and I was led to believe that it might possibly occur 

 in the vicinity, but learned subsequently that an enterprising Indian trader had 

 imported a number of the skins from the East and sold them to the Indians at 

 fancy prices. Mr. Robert Ridgway records having seen one near Salt Lake 

 Cit}% Utah, probably a straggler, and I know of only one other reliable record 

 west of the Rocky Mountains, that of a bird taken by Mr. W. W. Price, in the 

 Chiricahua ^lountains, Arizona. 



Like most Woodpeckers, the Red-headed is rather noisy during the mating 

 season, continually frolicking and playing hide and seek with its mate, and when 

 not so engaged, amusing itself by drumming on some resonant dead limb, or on 

 the roof and sides of houses, barns, etc. It is a rather suspicious bird, but 

 where not molested it will occasionally nest in close proximity to houses. Its 

 ordinary call note is a loud " tchur-tchur ; " when chasing each other a shrill 

 note like "chiirr-charr" is frequently uttered, and alarm is expressed by a harsh, 

 rattling note, as well as by one which, according to Mr. Otto Widmann, is indis- 

 tinguishable from the note of the Tree-frog {Hijla arhorea). He tells me that 

 both bird and frog sometimes answer each other. I consider this species rather 

 (piarrelsome and domineering, both toward its own kind and with other birds, 

 and see little in its general character to commend. From an economic view, it 

 appears to me certainly to do fully as much if not more harm than good, and 

 I consider it less worthy of protection than any of our Woodpeckers, the Yellow- 

 breasted Sapsucker not excepted. 



In the northern })arts of its range niditication begins usually diu-iug the last 

 week in May or .the tirst week in June. Some of its nesting sites are exceed- 

 ingly neat pieces of work; the edges of the entrance hole are beautifully beveled 

 off, and the inside is as smooth as if iinished with a fine rasp. The entrance is 

 about 1| inches in diameter and the inner cavity varies from 8 to 24 inches in 

 depth; the eggs ai-e deposited on a layer of tine chips. It usually nests in the 

 dead tops or limbs of deciduous trees, or in old stumps of oak, ash, butternut, 

 maple, elm, sycamore, cottonwood, willow, and other species, more rareh^ in 

 coniferous and frait trees, at heights varying from 8 to 80 feet from the ground, 

 and also not infrequentl}^ in natural cavities. On the treeless prairies it has to 

 resort mainly to telegraph poles and fence posits, and here it also nests under the 

 roofs of houses or in any dark coruei it can find. 



Incubation lasts about two weeks, and both sexes assist in this labor, as well 

 as in the preparation of the nesting cavity; an etg^ is laid daily, and incubation 

 sometimes commences before the set is conqjleted. The young of tliis species 

 are fed in the ordinary way, at any rate after they are half grown, the parents 

 bringing their food in their bills. The number of eggs to a set varies from four 

 to seven, sets of five being most frequently found, while occasionally as many 

 as eight eggs have been taken from a nest. Mr. R. C. ]\IcGregor records taking 



