JANUARY, 1902. WINTER HABITS OF RED-HEADED WOODPECKER. 
69 
Notes on the Winter Habits of the Red-Headed Woodpecker. 
H. A, WINKENWERDER. 
The red-headed woodpecker is ordinarily a migrant. Its win- 
ter range in the Mississippi Valley, according to Prof. W. W. 
Cooke, is much restricted, although it is abundant as far north as 
the bottom lands of southern Illinois ( i ) . He feeds upon both an- 
imal and vegetable matter in nearly equal quantities, the per- 
centage varying according to season and locality. In the spring 
its food consists mostly of insects. 'Tn the fall," says Capt. 
Ghas. Bendire, ''its diet is more largely vegetable, one of its staples 
being beechnuts ; the berries of sour gum, dog wood, and palmetto 
are also largely eaten ; acorns and Indian corn and small grain are 
likewise used, and it is well known that these birds store away 
supplies, consisting both of insects and vegetable matter, for 
winter use (2). 
A remarkable case of the storing of insects is the one reported 
by Dr. G. S. Agersburg of Vermillion, S. Dakota, and it is prob- 
ably he who was the first to report this habit of storing. He 
writes as follows : 
''Last spring in opening a good many birds of this species with 
the object of ascertaining their principal food, I found in their 
stomachs nothing but young grasshoppers. One of them, which 
had its headquarters near my house, was observed making fre- 
quent visits to an old oak post, and on examining it I found a 
large crack where the woodpecker had inserted about 100 grass- 
hoppers of all sizes (for future use, as later observation proved), 
which were put in without killing them, but they were so^ firmly 
wedged in the crack that they in vain tried to get free. I told this 
to a couple of farmers, and found that they had also seen the 
same thing, and showed me posts which were used for the same 
purpose. Later in the season the woodpecker whose station was 
near my house commenced to use his stores, and today (February 
10) there are only a few shriveled-up grasshoppers left" (3). 
Dr. G. Hart Merriam has noted many cases of the red-head 
wintering far to the north of its winter home when the food sup- 
ply was abundant. From his extended observations he has drawn 
(1) W. \V. Cooke. Migration in the Miss. Valley, U. S. Agr. Rep. 1888, 
page 130. 
(2) Capt. C. A. Bendire. Life Histories of N. A. Birds, p. 108, vol. 11. 
(3) Bull. Ntitt. Ornith. Club, op. 194. 195, from Beal Food of Woodpeckers, 
U. S. Dept. of Agr. Bull. No. 7, Div. Ornith. and Mammalogy. 
