BIRDS OF PEASEMARSH 



and does not come so often to cultivated 

 orchards. But if Downy is given fair play he 

 will be there with the Chickadees and the Nut- 

 hatches, and any fruit grower who does not 

 realize what an expert he is in extracting borers 

 and the larvae of the coddling moth should 

 watch him at work. His beak can tear open the 

 hardest cocoon the caterpillar can weave. 

 Downy likes to keep his head up, and if he 

 comes down a tree trunk he does so tail first. 



Like the Chickadee and the Nuthatch, the 

 Downy Woodpecker can be attracted to a nest 

 box by suet, but a nest box that he will accept 

 should be like his natural home in the woods. 

 The most satisfactory are made out of sections 

 of a decaying log, the excavation flask shaped, 

 and an inch or so of sawdust in the bottom to 

 take the place of the peckings that drop when 

 he hollows out his own nest in a tree. 



There is still another helper in the orchard, 

 little Tree Creeper. Its whole existence is de- 

 rived from the trunks and branches of the 

 trees. Its nesting place is the crevice under a 

 flake of bark. Though a resident bird in the 

 north, it is seldom seen here until late winter 

 or early spring. It has several distinct little 

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