CALIFORNIA WOODPECKER. 



Melanerpes forwicivorus bairdi Ridgway. 



Plate XXXVI. Fig. 5. 



"pN SUITABLE localities," says Major Charles Bendire in "his monumental work, 

 ^ "Life-histories of North American Birds," "the California Woodpecker is one of 

 the most abundant and familiar species along our southern border, and it is also rather 

 common in many portions of California and western Oregon. Being essentially a bird 

 of the oak belt, this handsome Woodpecker need only be looked for where these trees 

 are abundant. ... It is by far the most sociable representative of this family found 

 within the United States, and it is no unusual occurrence to see half a dozen or more 

 in a single tree. It is also a well-disposed bird, and seldom quarrels or fights with its 

 ow^n kind or with smaller species; but it most emphatically resents the thieving pro- 

 pensities of the different Jays, Magpies, and squirrels, when caught trespassing on its 

 winter stores, attacking these intruders with such vigor and persistency that they are 

 compelled to vacate the premises in a hurry. Its manner of flight and call-notes closely 

 resemble those of the Red-headed Woodpecker, and, like it, it loves to cling to some 

 convenient dead limb near the top of a tree and drum for hours at a time. It is one of 

 the most restless Woodpeckers I know of, and never appears to be at a loss for amuse- 

 ment or work of some kind, and no other bird belonging to this family could possibly 

 be more industrious. During the spring and summer its food consists, to a great extent, 

 of insects, including grasshoppers, ants, beetles, and different species of flies, varied 

 occasionally with fruit, such as cherries, which are carried off whole, apples, figs, and 

 also berries and green corn ; but acorns always form its principal food supply during 

 the greater portion of the year, and large numbers are stored away by it in the thick 

 bark of pines, as well as in dry and partly rotten limbs df oak and other trees, also in 

 telegraph poles and fence posts. This peculiar habit of storing acorns in receptacles 

 especially made for this purpose, and not under loose bark or similar hiding places, 

 seems, however, to be principally confined to the birds found in California and south- 

 w^estern Oregon, v\rhile it has not as yet been noted, to the same extent at least, in the 

 somewhat smaller birds found in Arizona and New^ Mexico; and this habit is far too 

 noticeable to have been overlooked by the many careful ornithologists who have visited 

 Arizona since I was there in 1872 and 1873, and have had far better opportunities for 

 observing its habits than I enjoyed. Although I traveled over considerable areas in both 

 years where these birds were fairly common in places, I saw no evidence of their storing 

 acorns in the way they do in the more northern parts of their range, though I must 

 confess that I was then generally far more on the lookout for hostile Indians thaii 

 ornithological matters. ..." 



"The supposition, that they store only wormy acorns, and allow the inhabitant 

 to get fat before eating it, is nonsense ; the meat of the acorn is the attraction, not the 

 w^orm in it, and there is no doubt that it furnishes their principal food in winter, and 

 more or less during the remainder of the year as well." 



