FOREST AND STREAM. 










UISTORN? 


[NATURAL 



Some Facts about Woodpeckers. 
FoUNTAIN City, Ind., Sept. 14—Editor Forest 
\td Stream: The recent interest in this bird 
is brought to my memory a lot of things about 
em, for I was raised in the midst of them, so 
| speak. They were to be seen on most any 
ad tree and on every rail fence. About the 
jiddle of May the red-headed woodpeckers re- 
|rned from their winter quarters somewhere in 
je South, and they announced their arrival by 
drumming with their bills on some 
psonant dry limb, usually selecting a dead one 
1 the top of a tall ash or poplar. The drum- 
jing is very rapid, lasts not more than one or 
vo seconds, and after a short wait the bird 
ys in a_ high-pitched tone, ‘K-w-e-e-r,” re- 
hated a number of times, and each time it is 
companied by a motion of the head and body 
actly like an old fashioned curtsy, which 
jomen of inferior station used to make to their 
ptters. 
| Mating begins with their arrival, and desperate 
izhts are frequent, presumably between the 
ales, for there is:no way to tell which are 
sales and which are females except by dissec- 
jon. In appearance the two sexes are exactly 
jike. The fights are on account of jealousy, or 
ir the possession of last year’s nests. They 
jxht by clinching each other with bill and claws 
id flutter to the ground, fighting as they fall. 
| pair of them once came down so close to me 
jat I caught one of them. They are always 
jignacious, and if taken alive fight the hand 
jat holds them with bill and claws. For the 
est the dead and tender body of a tree or large 
Jnb is selected, preferably one that leans from 
je perpendicular, and the entrance is always 
11 the side toward which the tree leans. It 
jould be less work to dig the nest on the other 
jde of the lean, but the bird knows that rain 
jould get in from that side and will not get in 
,om the sheltered side. 
, The nest is started by picking a perfectly round 
ble in the wood about two to two and a half 
ches in diameter, the hole extending about 
}ree inches into the wood at right angles to the 
dy of the tree, then turns downward, and is 
wlarged until it is large enough to make com- 
irtable quarters inside. The downward extent 
| the hole varies. Sometimes it stops at six 
ches, and I have split open tree trunks where 
e hole was eighteen inches deep, but do not 
how whether the hole was made by wood- 
jickers or their cousins, the yellowhammers, 
jhich usually dig deeper holes. Digging the 
ple is quite a job. I have known it to take 
week of constant labor, both birds working 
| it and relieving each other. Little if any nest- 
ig material is used. An inch or so of fine chips 
/ the rotten wood is all I ever found in the 
ists. Old nests are used from year to year, 
jid are usually cleaned out and dug deeper each 
:ar. 
|The woodpecker will eat almost anything in 
je way of insect, fruit or cereal food that is 
jitainable, and he is very fond of beechnuts 
id small acorns. During the fore part of the 
ason much time is spent in digging worms 
Jom rotten wood, and many of them get their 
ring during this time from the rail pens or 
ven cribs in which corn used to be stored. 
‘hen cherries were ripe a constant stream of 
so0dpeckers used to be coming and going be- 
reen the cherry trees and the woods. A little 
ter, when early apples began to ripen, they 
ant in for red apples, hardly ever eating apples 
any other color if there were red ones. Pears 
¢me next, and there was a race between the 
rds and the boys to get the first ones that 
it ‘“meller.” Raspberries began to attract their 
Heation, too, about this time, and the birds 
sre after them along the old fence rows, wait- 
¥2 for the berries to ripen. Later, still, when 



jQOrous 

So 



the corn was in the roasting ear stage, they at 
tacked the corn in force, digging through the 
husk and sucking the milk’ out of the grains, 
and they kept on eating it after the grains had 
hardened. 
Grasshoppers form a large part of their food 
during late summer and early fall. They evi- 
dently have good eyes for seeing small objects 
at a distance, for it is not uncommon to «see 
them drop from a tree 100 feet high straight 
to a grasshopper a few rods away from the foot 






THE SHELL KEYS RESERVATION. 

THE 
TERN ISLANDS RESERVATION. 
of the tree. They eat a few ants, but do not 
seem to be fond of them like the yellowhammers. 
The woodpeckers catch many insects on the 
wing, but as a rule they do not hunt them con- 
tinuously on the wing, like swallows, but cling 
to the side or at the tip of some high tree, and 
dart for insects that come in sight. There was 
generally one or more on the lightning rod staff 
on our old barn and we threw thousands of small 
stones as hard as we could throw them, aiming 
for them to fall near the staff. The woodpecker 
would always dart for the stone, but rarely got 
nearer than ten feet of it before seeing that it 
was not an insect, and would then return to 
the staff, and was just as ready to fly after the 
next stone. I never knew but one that tried 
to take hold of the stone, and it brought him to 
the ground. 
A few days ago I noticed a group of half a 
dozen that were trying to catch insects on the 
wing like swallows. They were awkward and 
clumsy about it, and every few minutes would 
come to a tree for a rest. It is the only time 
I have observed such a thing in more than fifty 
years of observation. 

As a rule the woodpecker is migratory, but 
not always. i 
quite regular, but the autumn ; 
good deal, probably on account of 
varies a 
f< « ral 
going 
varying 
supply. Toward fall they get together in large 
numbers, not staying in close flocks, like black 
birds or crows, but swarming over a consider- 
able area of the country. Nobody knows when 
they go. All that is known about it is that “the 
woodpeckers are gone.” There is little doubt 
but that their migratory flights are made by 
night. I have never heard them, but a friend 
who is a close observer says he has heard them 
many times overhead during autumn nights, and 
always flying south. He recognized them by 
their peculiar chirp, like a driver chirping to 
his horse. 
Some years when beechnuts and acorns are 
abundant they do not migrate, but they always 
migrate when there are no beechnuts. When 
there are plenty of nuts they sometimes migrate 
and sometimes do not. By the time the nuts 
begin to ripen they have determined whether 
they will go or whether they will stay. If they 
are going to stay they set to work so soon as 
frost has loosened the nuts and are as busy as 
a swarm of bees, every day and all day, hiding 
the nuts under the scales of hickory bark, in 
knot holes, cracks and any place where they 
may be concealed and protected from the weather. 
If they have concluded to go they do not put 
any nuts away, but sit round idle, except to 
eat, and before severe weather sets in the last 
one of them will be gone, all going at once. I 
watched this particular thing for eight consecu- 
the beech 

tive autumns. Four of these years 
trees were barren; the other four years they 
were fruitful. Two of the fruitful years the 
woodpeckers stayed all winter; the other two 
years they went. Why they did this I do not 
know, but I do know that the two winters that 
they went were severe, and the two winters that 
they stayed were mild. Pooh-pooh this all you 
like, but do not hold me responsible for the 
facts. Ask the woodpeckers about it. They did 
it. Altogether the woodpecker comes about as 
near being a bird of mystery as any bird so con- 
stantly under the observation of man. 
HAMPTON. 
O.OH.: 

Additional Bird Refuges. 
Aug. 8, 
RoosEvELT, under date of 
ordered that “all small islets, commonly called 
mud lumps, in or near the mouths of the Mis- 
sissippi River, Louisiana, located within the area 
segregated and shown upon the diagram hereto 
attached and made a part of this order, are here- 
by reserved and set aside for the use of the 
Department of Agriculture, as a preserve and 
breeding ground for native birds. This reserva- 
tion to be known as Tern Islands Reservation. 
On Aug. 17 the President issued the follow- 
ing order: 
“Tt is hereby ordered that. the executive order 
of July 9, 1855, creating the Light House Reser- 
vation, which embraces a small group of un- 
surveyed islets located in the Gulf: of Mexico, 
about three and one-half miles south of Marsh 
Island, Louisiana, and approximately in latitude 
29° 26’ north, longitude 91° 51’ west from Green- 
wich, as appears upon United States Coast Sur 
vey chart No. 200, be, and the same is hereby 
vacated and set aside; and it is also ordered that 
these islets, located within the area segregated 
and shown upon the diagram hereto attached 
and made a part of this order, be, and they are 
hereby reserved and set apart for the use ot 
the Department of Agriculture as a reserve and 
breeding ground for native birds. This reser- 
vation to be known as Shell Keys Reservation.” 
These are separate reservations. The Tern 
Islands Reservation takes in the entire delta of 
PRESIDENT 

