OUR FIVE COMMON WOODPECKERS 
TF, AS you walk through some old orchard 
or along the borders of a woodland tan- 
gle, 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 carpenters wear striking 
black and white suits, patched or striped, the 
males with red on their heads, their wives with 
less of this jaunty touch of colour perhaps, or 
none, but wearing otherwise similar clothes. 
Only the dainty little black and white creeping 
warbler could possibly be confused with the 
smallest of these sturdy, matter-of-fact artisans, 
although, as you know, chickadees, titmice, 
nuthatches and kinglets also haunt the bark of 
trees; but the largest of these is smaller than 
downy, the smallest of the woodpeckers. 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 ham- 
mering for a dinner, or drumming a love song, 
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