Belted Kingfisher, Male
The flashing white collar and underparts of the Kingfisher gleam as he flies rapidly along his chosen stream, giving his loud, rattling call. As he perches on a favorite overhanging stub, he elevates his crest, rattles once or twice, then becomes quiet as he watches the pool below him. Suddenly he dives from his perch, there is a splash, and he disappears beneath the surface. In a few seconds he arises, a slim, glistening fish in his mandibles. He makes off up stream, rattling again and again as the fish ceases its struggles, then swallows his prey, head first, entire. In addition to fish, he eats crayfish and other small aquatic creatures, and sometimes mice.
When the young hatch they are naked and ugly. They soon are covered with pin-feathers, however, and when the tips of these break, the young begin to look like their parents at once. Several days before they leave the burrow to learn angling for themselves, they scuttle about on their short feet, sometimes coming to the entrance for a moment to glimpse the world that is soon to be such an unfolding of adventure for them. They rattle like their parents, and if a hand is thrust in among them, they pick savagely at the fingers—either in anger or with the belief that a larger, finer fish than parents ever caught has come to be swallowed.
Kingfishers capture some trout and other valuable food or game-fish and are therefore not protected in Pennsylvania.
HAIRY WOODPECKER
Dryobates villosus villosus (Linnæus)
Other Name.—Sapsucker (erroneous).
Description.—Smaller than Robin; like other Woodpeckers, usually seen perched on the trunk of a tree or flying, in a strongly undulating fashion, through the air. Adult male: Top of head, line through eye and line from lower mandible to rear part of head, black, nape bright red, rest of head, white; back, black with white median stripe; wings black, spotted profusely with white; tail black, the outer feathers white, unspotted; underparts white. The adult female is precisely the same but lacks the red nape. Young birds have the crown red, the tips of the feathers lightly speckled with white. Length: 9½ inches.
Range in Pennsylvania.—A common permanent resident, usually to be found in the higher woodlands but often also in the towns.
Nest.—A cavity in a tree trunk, usually from 25 to 60 feet from the ground, the entrance about 2 inches in diameter. Eggs: 3 to 5, glossy white.
Hairy Woodpecker
The Hairy Woodpecker’s loud, sharp peek, peek is a welcome sound in winter woods of northern Pennsylvania where so few birds are found during the cold season. This species is the enemy of all wood-boring larvæ, its sharp, chisel-like bill, long, barb-tipped tongue, strong feet, and stiff tail all being peculiarly adapted to existence on the tree-trunks. It is sometimes found in orchards, but about towns and human dwellings is not nearly so often seen as its smaller, more confiding relative, the Downy Woodpecker.