THE RED-HEADED WOODPECKER. 353 



No. 155. 



RED-HEADED WOODPECKER. 



A. O. U. No. 406. Melanerpes erythrocephalus (Linn.) 



Synonym. TRICOLORED WOODPECKER. 



Description. Adult : Head and neck all around and fore breast rich crim- 

 son ; back, scapulars, and wing-coverts glossy blue-black, and sometimes a narrow, 

 pectoral band of the same color below the red (found only in worn plumages) ; 

 terminal portion of secondaries (save outer webs of first and second, which are 

 black or black-banded), rump, and upper tail-coverts white; edge of wing, pri- 

 maries and tail black, the latter variously white-tipped on outer feathers below ; 

 remaining under parts, including under wing-coverts, pure white, sometimes with 

 faint crimson tinge on center of belly; bill dark plumbeous, lightening at base. 

 Immature : Quite different ; without red, or with only traces of it appearing on 

 auriculars, breast and nape ; head, neck, and fore-breast brownish gray, mixed with 

 dusky in fine streaks, or almost uniform fuscous ; back and scapulars bluish-black, 

 with ashy edgings, or broadly mottled and indistinctly barred with whitish; ex- 

 posed portions of secondaries with two or three irregular black bars ; below sordid 

 whitish, sometimes streaked with dusky on breast and sides. Length 9.25-9.75 

 (23S.-247.6) ; av. of eight Columbus specimens: wing 5.40 (137.2); tail 3.22 

 (81.8); bill 1.05 (26.7). 



Recognition Marks. Robin size ; head all around deep crimson ; red, black, 

 and white in broad patches. 



Nest, a hole excavated in tree,, often living, at considerable heights ; unlined, 

 Eggs. 4-6, glossy white. Av. size, 1.02 x .76 (25.9 x 19.3). 



General Range. United States west to the Rocky Mountains, and north 

 from Florida to about 50, straggling westward to Salt Lake Valley and Arizona; 

 rare or local east of the Hudson River. 



Range in Ohio. Common throughout the State; abundant in central por- 

 tion. Winters irregularly everywhere. 



OF all our Woodpeckers the Red-headed is the fittest (or at least the most 

 likely) to survive. As if to compensate the bird for its fatal conspicuousness, 

 Nature has made it hardy, thrifty, versatile and pugnacious. The primeval 

 forests were, no doubt, more to the bird's taste, but with their gradual disap- 

 pearance the wily Woodpecker has thoroughly accommodated itself to the 

 changed conditions, so that it is now almost as much a bird of the open as of 

 the woodland. Telegraph poles and fence-posts offer acceptable nesting sites, 

 so that it may exist in countries almost destitute of timber. 



Ability to meet changed conditions depends upon many factors, but chiefly 

 upon food supply. The Red-headed Woodpecker burrows and probes for 

 worms and ants like his congeners, but to this limited fare is added grasshoppers, 

 crickets, and beetles secured upon the ground; flies, wasps, and all sorts of 

 insects taken in mid air, with all the skill, if not quite the grace, of the Fly- 



