42 WOODLAND CREATURES 



but prefers a high one, for in all its affairs it keeps 

 to the tree-tops. The selection of a nesting site 

 takes place some time in March, after the business 

 of love-making and courtship has been brought 

 to a satisfactory conclusion. I once had the 

 pleasure of watching a pair of Greater Spotted 

 Woodpeckers at their love-making. It was one 

 of those lovely warm days that come occasionally 

 in the middle of March; the air was still and 

 the atmosphere brilliantly clear, the distant purple 

 hills seeming but across the valley. Sound too 

 travelled farther than usual; the drumming of 

 a Spotted Woodpecker and the loud laughing 

 call of a Green one echoed to and fro across the 

 dingles. That drumming drew me through the 

 wood towards the spot from which it seemed to 

 come, for I wanted to watch a woodpecker in 

 the act of making it. It is by no means easy 

 to locate a bird that is producing the call, for 

 the sound is curiously deceptive, and often appears 

 to come from the opposite direction to that in 

 which it really originates. One generally hears 

 it during the spring and summer months, and 

 rarely at other times of year, so we may take it 

 that it is the Spotted Woodpecker's love song, 

 if one can call such a noise a " song " ! It is 

 made by the bird striking rapidly with its beak 

 on a piece of dry wood, but the actual manner 

 in which it is produced is difficult to observe, 

 for even with strong glasses it is not easy to see 

 just what the bird does. Mr. N. Tracy reported 

 in British Birds (vol. xiii, p. 88) that he had 



