Length	6 to 7 inches
Male	Black above, striped with white. Tail shaped like a wedge. Outer tail feathers white, and barred with black. Middle tail feathers black. A black stripe on top of head, and distinct white band over and under the eyes. Red patch on upper side of neck. Wings, with six white bands crossing them transversely; white underneath.
Female	Similar, but without scarlet on the nape, which is white.
Range	Eastern North America, from Labrador to Florida.
Migrations	Resident all the year throughout its range.

The downy woodpecker is similar to his big relative, the hairy woodpecker, in color and shape, though much smaller. A Downy Woodpecker's outer tail feathers are white, barred with black, but the Hairy's white outer tail feathers lack these distinguishing marks.

He is often called a sapsucker from the supposition that he bores into the trees for the purpose of sucking the sap; but his tongue is ill adapted for such use, being barbed at the end. It has been surmised that he bores the numerous little round holes close together, so often seen, with the idea of attracting insects to the luscious sap. The woodpeckers never drill for insects in live wood. The Downy Woodpecker actually drills these little holes in apple and other trees to feed upon the inner milky bark of the tree -- the cambium layer.

The only harm to be laid to his account is that, in his zeal, he sometimes makes a ring of small holes so continuous as to inadvertently damage the tree by girdling it. The bird, like most others, does not debar himself entirely from fruit diet, but enjoys berries - especially poke-berries.

He is very social with birds and men alike. In winter he attaches himself to strolling bands of nuthatches and chickadees, and in summer is fond of making friendly visits among village folk, frequenting the shade trees of the streets and grapevines of back gardens. He has even been known to fearlessly peck at flies on window panes.

In contrast to his large brother woodpecker, who is seldom drawn from timber lands, the little Downy member of the family brings the comfort of his cheery presence to country homes, beating his rolling tattoo in spring on some resonant limb under our windows in the garden with a strength worthy of a larger drummer.

This rolling tattoo, or drumming, answers several purposes: by it he determines whether the tree is green or hollow; it startles insects from their lurking places underneath the bark, and it also serves as a love song.

YELLOW-BELLIED SAPSUCKER
(Sphyrapicus varius) Woodpecker family
AKA: SAPSUCKER; YELLOW-BELLIED WOODPECKER

Length	8 to 8.5 inches
Male	Black, white, and yellowish white above, with bright-red crown, chin, and throat. Breast black, in form of crescent. A yellowish-white line, beginning at bill and passing below eye, merges into the pale yellow of the bird underneath. Wings spotted with white, and coverts chiefly white. Tail black; white on middle of feathers.
Female	Paler, and with head and throat white.
Range	Eastern North America, from Labrador to Central America.
Migrations	April. October. Resident north of Massachusetts. Most common in autumn.

It is sad to record that this exquisitely marked woodpecker, the most jovial and boisterous of its family, is one of the very few bird visitors whose intimacy should be discouraged.

The Yellow Bellied Sapsucker's useful appetite for slugs and insects, which it can take on the wing with wonderful dexterity, ensures it need not be wholly condemned. But as we look upon a favorite maple or fruit tree devitalized or perhaps wholly dead from its ravages, we cannot forget that this bird, while a most abstemious fruit-eater, has a pernicious and most intemperate thirst for sap!

Indeed, it spends much of its time in the orchard, drilling holes into the freshest, most vigorous trees; then, when their sap begins to flow, it siphons it into an insatiable throat, stopping in its orgy only long enough to snap at the insects that have been attracted to the wounded tree by the streams of its heart-blood now trickling down its sides. Another favorite pastime of the Yellow Bellied Sapsucker is to strip the bark off a tree, then peck at the soft wood underneath -- almost as fatal a habit. It drills holes in maples in early spring for sap only. If it drills holes in fruit trees it is for the cambium layer, a soft, pulpy, nutritious under-bark.

These woodpeckers have a variety of call-notes, but their rapid drumming against the limbs and trunks of trees is the sound we always associate with them and the sound that Mr. Bicknell says is the love-note of the family.

Unhappily, these birds, that many would be glad to have decrease in numbers, take extra precautions for the safety of their young by making very deep excavations for their nests, often as deep as eighteen or twenty inches.

RED-HEADED WOODPECKER
(Melanerpes erythrocephalus)
AKA: TRI-COLOR, RED-HEAD

Bird Picture - Red Headed Woodpecker Photo

Length	8.50 to 9.75 inches
Male	Head, neck, and throat crimson; breast and underneath white; back black and white; wings and tail blue black, with broad white band on wings conspicuous in flight.
Female	As the male.
Range	United States, east of Rocky Mountains and north to Manitoba.
Migrations	Abundant but irregular migrant. Most commonly seen in Autumn, and rarely resident.

In thinly populated sections, where there are few guns about, this is still one of the commonest as it is perhaps the most conspicuous member of the woodpecker family, but its striking glossy black-and-white body and its still more striking crimson head, flattened out against the side of a tree like a target, where it is feeding, have made it all too tempting a mark for the rifles of the sportsmen and the sling-shots of small boys.

As if sufficient attention were not attracted to the Red-Headed Woodpecker by its plumage, it must needs keep up a noisy, guttural rattle, ker-r-ruck, ker-r-ruck, very like a tree-toad's call, and flit about among the trees with the restlessness of a fly-catcher. Yet, in spite of these invitations for a shot to the passing gunner, it still multiplies in districts where nuts abound, being "more common than the robin" about Washington, says John Burroughs.

All the familiar woodpeckers have two characteristics most prominently exemplified in this red-headed member of their tribe. The hairy, the downy, the crested, the red-bellied, the sapsucker, and the flicker have each a red mark somewhere about their heads as if they had been wounded there and bled a little -- some more, some less; and the figures of all of them, from much flattening against tree-trunks, have become high-shouldered and long in the waist.

The red-headed woodpecker selects, by preference, a partly decayed tree in which to excavate a hole for its nest, because the digging is easier, and the sawdust and chips make a softer lining than green wood. Both male and female take turns in this hollowing-out process. The one that is off duty is allowed twenty minutes for refreshments, "consisting of grubs, beetles, ripe apples or cherries, corn, or preferably beech-nuts. At a loving call from its mate in the hollow tree, it returns promptly to perform its share of the work, when the carefully observed time is up." The heap of sawdust at the bottom of the hollow will eventually cradle from four to six glossy-white eggs.

This woodpecker has the thrifty habit of storing away nuts in the knot-holes of trees, between cracks in the bark, or in decayed fence rails--too often a convenient storehouse at which the squirrels may help themselves. But it is the black snake that enters the nest and eats the young family, and that is a more deadly foe than even the sportsman or the milliner.

HAIRY WOODPECKER
(Dryobates villosus) Woodpecker family

Length	9 to 10 inches
Male	Black and white above, white beneath. White stripe down the back, composed of long hair-like feathers. Bright red band on the nape of neck. Wings striped and dashed with black and white. Outer tail feathers white, without bars. White stripe about eyes and on sides of the head.
Female	Without the red band on head, and body more brownish than that of the male.
Range	Eastern parts of United States, from the Canadian border to the Carolinas.
Migrations	Resident throughout its range.

The bill of the woodpecker is a hammering tool, well fitted for its work. Its mission in life is to rid the trees of insects, which hide beneath the bark, and with this end in view, the bird is seen clinging to the trunks and branches of trees through fair and wintry weather, industriously scanning every inch for the well-known signs of the boring worm or destructive fly.

In the autumn the Hairy Woodpecker male begins to excavate his winter quarters, carrying or throwing out the chips, by which this good workman is known, with his beak, while the female may make herself cosy or not, as she chooses, in an abandoned hole.

About her comfort the Hairy Woodpecker male seems shamefully unconcerned. Intent only on his own, he drills a perfectly round hole, usually on the underside of a limb where neither snow nor wind can harm him, and digs out a horizontal tunnel in the dry, brittle wood in the very heart of the tree, before turning downward into the deep, pear-shaped chamber, where he lives in selfish solitude. But when the nesting season comes, how devoted he is temporarily to the mate he has neglected and even abused through the winter! Will she never learn that after her clear-white eggs are laid and her brood raised he will relapse into the savage and forget all his tender wiles?

The hairy woodpecker, like many another bird and beast, furnishes much doubtful weather lore for credulous and inexact observers. "When the woodpecker pecks low on the trees, expect warm weather" is a common saying, but when different individuals are seen pecking at the same time, one but a few feet from the ground, and another among the high branches, one may make the prophecy that pleases him best.

Hairy Woodpeckers love the deep woods. They are drummers, not singers; but when walking in the desolate winter woods even the drumming and tapping of the busy feathered workmen on a resonant limb is a solace, giving a sense of life and cheerful activity which is invigorating.

See other:

Black and White Birds
- Bobolink
- Snow Bunting
- Rose-breasted Grosbeak
- Eastern Towhee

Black and White Warblers
- Black-and-White Warbler
- Black-Poll Warbler

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