Flicker. Golden-Winged Woodpecker 



A marked April note, proceeding sometimes from the 

 meadows, but more frequently from the rough pastures 

 and borders of the woods, is the call of the high-hole or 



golden-shafted woodpecker It is a succession of 



short notes rapidly uttered, as if the bird said, "if-if-if- 

 if -if -if -if . " .... The high-hole is not so much a wood- 

 pecker as a ground-pecker. He subsists largely on ants 

 and crickets, and does not appear till they are to be found. 



BURROUGHS. Birds and Poets. 10 



How that single sound peoples and enriches all the 

 woods and fields! They are no longer the same fields and 

 woods that they were. This note really quickens what 

 was dead. It seems to put life into the withered grass 

 and bare twigs and henceforth the days shall not be as 

 they have been. It is like the note of an alarm clock 

 set last fall so as to wake nature up at exactly this date, 

 Up, up, up, up, up, up, up. 



THOREAU. Spring. 12 



Audubon describes its song as "a prolonged jovial 

 laugh." Mrs. Wright gives it as "Wick, wick, wick, 

 wick," and Dr. Abbott as " Wake-up, wake-up, wake-up." 



His call-note is a vigorous nasal kee-yer. 



FLYCATCHER, GREAT-CRESTED 



The most dignified and handsomely dressed member 

 of his family, the crested flycatcher has, nevertheless, an 

 air of pensive melancholy about him when in repose that 



67 



