CHAPTER XIV 



CARPENTERS IN FEATHERS 



Flicker — ^Red-headed Woodpecker — ^Yellow-bellied 

 Woodpecker — ^Downy Woodpecker — Hairy Wood- 

 pecker 



If, as you walk through some old orchard or along the 

 borders of a woodland tangle, you see a high-shouldered, 

 stocky bird clinging fast to the side of a tree "as if he had 

 been thrown at it and stuck," you may be very sure he is a 

 woodpecker. Four of our five common, non-union car- 

 penters wear striking black and white suits, patched or 

 striped, the males with red on their heads, the females with 

 less of this jaimty touch of color perhaps, or none, but 

 wearing otherwise similar clothes. Only the dainty little 

 black and white creeping warbler could possibly be con- 

 fused with the smallest of these sturdy, matter-of-fact 

 artisans, although chickadees, titmice, nuthatches, and 

 kinglets also haunt the bark of trees; but the largest of 

 these is smaller than downy, the smallest of the wood- 

 peckers. One of the carpenters, the big flicker, an original 

 fellow, is dressed in soft browns, yellow, white and black, 

 with the characteristic red patch across the back of his 

 neck. 



It is easy to tell a woodpecker at sight or even beyond 

 it, when you see or hear him hammering for a dinner, or 



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