Plumages.—The young are hatched naked and blind, but they acquire the juvenal plumage before they leave the nest. The sexes are alike in all plumages, and the juvenal plumage is quite unlike that of the adult. In the juvenal plumage, the head, neck, and upper chest are brownish gray, spotted above and streaked below with dusky; the back is black but not glossy as in the adult; the wings are as in the adult, except that the secondaries and tertials are white but more or less patterned or barred with black, chiefly near the tips, and the primaries are edged with buffy white on the outer webs; the under parts below the chest are dull white, clouded with brownish gray and more or less streaked with dusky, chiefly on the sides and flanks. This plumage is usually worn in its purity through July and August and sometimes into October, though sometimes a few red feathers are seen in the head; I have seen two or three red feathers in the head as early as June 29 and a bird not much farther advanced on December 1. But usually the complete molt into the adult plumage begins in September and lasts through winter; the change begins on the head and back in fall, but the wings are not usually molted until April, and even then some of the juvenal secondaries may be retained. Most young birds are in practically adult plumage before May.
Adults have a complete postnuptial molt in August and September; they may have a partial molt in spring, but I have not seen it. Some highly plumaged birds, probably old birds and mostly from western localities, have the abdomen tinged with red.
Food.—Much has been written on the food habits of the red-headed woodpecker, a most resourceful feeder on a greatly varied diet. Prof. F. E. L. Beal (1895) makes the following report on the contents of 101 stomachs, collected throughout the year in various parts of the country:
Animal matter, 50 percent; vegetable matter, 47 percent; mineral matter, 3 percent. * * * The insects consist of ants, wasps, beetles, bugs, grasshoppers, crickets, moths, and caterpillars. Spiders and myriapods also were found. Ants amounted to about 11 percent of the whole food. * * * Beetle remains formed nearly one-third of all food. * * * The families represented were those of the common May beetle (Lachnosterna), which was found in several stomachs, the predaceous ground beetles, tiger beetles, weevils, and a few others. * * * Weevils were found in 15 stomachs, and in several cases as many as 10 were present. Remains of Carabid beetles were found in 44 stomachs to an average amount of 24 percent of the contents of those that contained them, or 10 percent of all. The fact that 43 percent of all the birds taken had eaten these beetles, some of them to the extent of 16 individuals, shows a decided fondness for these insects, and taken with the fact that 5 stomachs contained Cicindelids or tiger beetles forms a rather strong indictment against the bird.
The vegetable food includes corn, dogwood berries, huckleberries, strawberries, blackberries, raspberries, mulberries, elderberries, wild black cherries, choke cherries, cultivated cherries, wild grapes, apples, pears, various seeds, acorns, and beechnuts. Prof. Beal (1895) reports that—
corn was found in 17 stomachs, collected from May to September, inclusive, and amounted to more than 7 percent of all the food. While it seems to be eaten in any condition, that taken in the late summer was in the milk, and evidently picked from standing ears. This * * * corroborates some of the testimony received, and indicates that the Redhead, if sufficiently abundant, might do considerable damage to the growing crop, particularly if other food was not at hand. While the fruit list is not so long as in the case of the Flicker, it includes more kinds that are, or may be, cultivated; and the quantity found in the stomachs, a little more than 33 percent of all the food, is greater than in any of the others. Strawberries were found in 1 stomach, blackberries or raspberries in 15, cultivated cherries in 2, apples in 4, and pears in 6. Fruit pulp was found in 33 stomachs, and it is almost certain that a large part of this was obtained from some of the larger cultivated varieties. Seeds were found in but few stomachs, and only a small number in each.
Audubon (1842) gives this woodpecker a rather bad name, saying:
I would not recommend to anyone to trust their fruit to the red-heads; for they not only feed on all kinds as they ripen, but destroy an immense quantity besides. No sooner are the cherries seen to redden, than these birds attack them. * * * Trees of this kind are stripped clean by them. * * * I may safely assert that a hundred have been shot upon a single cherry-tree in one day. * * * They have another bad habit, which is that of sucking the eggs of small birds. For this purpose, they frequently try to enter the boxes of the Martins or Bluebirds, as well as the pigeon-houses, and are often successful. The corn, as it ripens, is laid bare by their bill, when they feed on the top parts of the ear, and leave the rest either to the Grakles or the Squirrels, or still worse, to decay, after a shower has fallen upon it.
Bendire (1895) adds to the evidence against this gay villain. He personally saw a red-headed woodpecker rifle a nest of a red-shafted flicker and carry off an egg. He quotes from one observer who had seen one of these woodpeckers clean out a nest of young of the tufted titmouse, and from another who had seen one carrying off a freshly killed young robin. W. G. Smith wrote to him from Colorado: “The red-headed woodpecker is a common summer resident in the lower foothills along the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains in this State, and I consider it a veritable butcher among our nuthatches and chickadees, driving every one away from its nesting sites, and woe to the bird that this villain can reach. It destroys both eggs and young, dragging the latter out of their nests and frequently leaving them dead at the entrance of their holes.”
He also relates the following personal experience: