56

1916

91. Hairy Woodpecker. Somewhat less numerously represented than
in recent past years despite the ever-increasing amount of standing
dead timber in our woodlands although wherever this abounds
one had not to go far to see or hear one or two birds. They
sometimes visited our orchard trees and very often came to the
old locusts standing close about the house. At least two or
three pairs must have been passing the summer the summer in
our neighborhood yet I failed to ascertain when any of them
nested.

92. Downy Woodpecker. When, some twenty-five years, I began
purchasing the woodland that we now own in Concord it
was frequented at every season by at least a dozen Downy
Woodpeckers to one Hairy. Since then the smaller bird has
diminished and the larger increased in numbers until by
now the former is comparatively rare if not nearing total
extinction, locally. This season I failed to note a single 
pubescens anywhere until the very last day of August when 
one was seen in a birch by the roadside near our house.

93. Flicker. First noted on April 7 [April 7, 1916]. Shortly after this settled for the season
in normal numbers, two pairs nesting at the Farm (in hollow trunk sections
hung up in apple trees) and a third at Ritchie place. All these presumably
reared young of which many not long on wing frequented orchard & shade
trees near our house towards the last of June, calling to one another freely
and using for this purpose much the same, if feebler, notes as those which
make up the "shouting" of adult birds. The latter continued to utter it daily 
up to about June 7 [June 7, 1916] but after that were not often heard.
  Whether or no there were Flickers breeding at Ball's Hill this year
I failed to ascertain.