Animal Life in Field and Garden

by Jean-Henri Fabre

“But its passion for ants,” resumed Uncle Paul, “does not make the woodpecker neglect its duty as keeper of forests. It goes climbing up tree trunks, tapping the sickly parts, and pecking away with blows that at a distance sound like hammer strokes. If a passer-by interrupts it at its work it does not [[179]]immediately fly away, but runs around the trunk like a squirrel, and from the other side sticks out its head a little to see who or what is coming. If the intruder advances, the woodpecker goes on around the tree, always keeping on the opposite side until it becomes frightened, when it flies off, making the woods ring with its sonorous tiackackan, tiackackan. It flies with swift darts and bounds, swooping down, then rising, describing a series of undulating arches in the air.

“For its nest it bores out a deep hole in soft-wood trees such as firs and poplars. Male and female work with lusty blows of the beak, taking turns at the hardest part of the task, the piercing of the live wood of the trunk, until the worm-eaten center is reached. Chips, wood-dust, and decayed fragments are dug out with the feet, and at last the hole is deep enough and slanting enough to exclude the light of day. The young ones leave the nest before they can fly, and they may be seen exercising near it, learning to climb, to run around the trunk of their tree, and to cling to it upside down. You will be amused to watch them if you ever have the good fortune to be present at the frolics of a young family of woodpeckers.

“The great spotted woodpecker is about as large as a thrush. It has a wide red stripe across the nape of the neck, the upper part of the body is prettily spotted with pure white and deep black, and the under part is white as far as the abdomen, which is red, as is also the rump. The female has no [[180]]red on the nape of the neck. The food of this bird is the same as the green woodpecker’s. It strikes the tree with quicker, smarter blows, and if disturbed in its work it remains motionless in the shelter of a large branch with its green eyes fixed on the object of its distrust. Its cry is a kind of hoarse, grinding trer-rer-rer-rer.

“The variegated woodpecker much resembles the great spotted woodpecker in plumage, but is a little smaller. It is adorned with a red cap which covers the whole of the upper part and the back of the head, while the great spotted woodpecker has only a stripe of this color on the nape of the neck. Both these birds are found in the large wooded districts of France, and they live on the same diet,—insects, wood-boring larvæ, and ants. Also, because of their velvet costume of black and white and their scarlet cap, they are both to be ranked among the prettiest birds we have.

“Let us add to them the little spotted woodpecker. It is smaller than a sparrow, and its dress is that of the great spotted woodpecker. This bird is found almost exclusively in the fir forests of the East and of the Pyrenees.

“The wryneck is closely akin to the woodpeckers in the structure of its feet, whose four toes or talons are divided into two pairs, one pointing forward and the other backward, and in its very long and viscous tongue which it pushes into ant-hills or stretches out on the ground to receive the insects as they pass. It is a small bird, being no larger [[181]]than a lark. Its plumage is watered with black, brown, gray, and russet, somewhat like the woodcock’s, but with tints better defined and more beautiful in their combined effect. The wryneck is a great eater of caterpillars, and it is also passionately fond of ants, which it catches as does the woodpecker, with its sticky tongue laid on the ground across their path. Its name comes from the habit it has of twisting its neck and looking backward with a sort of slow and undulating movement like a snake’s.”

“Why does it imitate a snake like that?” Emile inquired.

“It is its way of expressing surprise and alarm; and perhaps it also hopes to frighten its foe with the motions. At any rate, it is sometimes successful. If a birdnest-hunter climbs up to its hole to steal its little ones, the wryneck emits, from the depths of its retreat, a sharp hissing and begins to make snake-like movements with its neck. The young birds, still featherless, imitate their mother to the best of their ability, and succeed so well that the hunter thinks he has thrust his hand into a nest of writhing and twisting flat-headed vipers. Thoroughly frightened, the boy clambers down, not without leaving some shreds of his breeches on the way.”

“Serves the rascal right, too,” declared Emile.

“The wryneck reaches us in April and leaves toward the end of summer. It haunts the outskirts of woods and visits gardens and orchards for caterpillars. It nests in a hole in a tree trunk and gladly avails itself of the woodpecker’s abandoned quarters [[182]]after furbishing them up a little to suit itself. The eggs, which are white and polished like the woodpecker’s, rest on a simple little bed of wood-dust that the bird dislodges from the walls of its hole with a few blows of its beak.