THE HAIRY WOODPECKER 



CHARLES BENDIRE 



THE Hairy Woodpecker is fairly common through the 

 wooded regions of our northern and middle States, and 

 in winter is occasionally found in some of the southern States 

 — Louisiana, for instance. It is a resident in the mountainous 

 regions of North Carolina, while in the lowlands it is replaced 

 by a smaller southern race. It is a hardy bird, and intense 

 cold does not appear to affect it much. 



As a rule the Hairy Woodpecker is rather unsocial, and 

 unless followed by their young more than a pair are rarely 

 seen together. It does not live in harmony with smaller 

 species of its own kind, and drives them away when they 

 encroach on its feeding grounds, being exceedingly greedy in 

 disposition and always hungry. It is partial to timbered river 

 bottoms, the outskirts of forests and occasionally it makes its 

 home in old orchards and in rather open, cultivated country, 

 interspersed here and there with isolated clumps of trees. It 

 is also found in the midst of extended forest regions. 



The Hairy Woodpecker, like most of its relatives, is an 

 exceedingly beneficial and useful bird, which rids our orchards 

 and forests of innumerable injurious larvae, like those of the 

 boring beetles, which burrow in the wood and between the 

 bark and trunk of trees. It never attacks a sound tree. 

 Although commonly known as Sapsucker, this name is very 

 inappropriate. It is not in search of sap, but of such grubs as 

 are found only in decaying wood. Nevertheless it is exceed- 



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