"More than twenty, but you are likely to notice only a few of them. I am sure, however, that you will be good friends with, four kinds before snowfall—the Downy Woodpecker that you saw this morning; the beautiful golden-winged Flicker; the gay Red-headed Woodpecker, so glossy blue-black and white; and the mischievous spotted Sapsucker who visits us in autumn. You will find them very different in looks and habits, in spite of their being cousins." "Uncle! Uncle Roy!" cried Dodo, running through the Orchard in a great state of excitement. "There is a very handsome, rare, wonderful kind of a Meadowlark walking on the lawn by the front steps. It's brown speckled with black and has a black patch on the breast and red on the head and when he flies you can see a white spot over the tail. Do you think he has come out of a cage?"
"No, missy, that is not a Meadowlark, is not rare or wonderful, and has not been in a cage; that is an every-day sort of a Woodpecker, having many names. Some think he is called the Flicker because he has a way of flicking his wings, and the Yellow Hammer because he hammers on trees with the beak and has fine golden wing-linings. The nest of the one you saw is in a hole, high up in the old sassafras by the side fence, and some say that this is why another of his names is High-hole. But it received all three of those names for other reasons you need not bother your head about just now.
"There are young birds in the nest now, and if you tap on the trunk with a stick you will hear them making a noise. This seems to be Woodpecker day, for Nat has seen the little Downy in the woods, you have seen the Flicker on the lawn, and I was telling him about two others; so you are just in time not to be too late. Now write the table for Nat's Downy, first, and then we will have the rest of the Woodpeckers."
The Downy Woodpecker
The smallest North American Woodpecker—hardly seven inches long.
Upper parts black, with a long white patch on middle of back; wings spotted with black and white. Some black and white bars on the outside tail-feathers. Red band on back of head of the male, but not of the female.
Under parts all white.
A Citizen of the eastern half of North America, where he stays all the year round.
A good and useful neighbor—one of the best. Does not bore holes in trees to injure them or eat the sap, but to get at the hurtful grubs which live under the bark, and the sharp, barbed tongue is especially fitted to pick thorn out of the holes which are dug with the stout chisel-like beak.
Eats a little fruit, chiefly-wild berries, and is a hard-working member of the guilds of Tree Trappers and Ground Gleaners, as he eats not only grubs, but ants, beetles, bugs, caterpillars, and spiders. He is also a Seed Sower, though in being so he and his brothers, without intentional mischief, scatter the seeds from the watery white berries of the poison ivy. He always digs for himself a nest in some partly decayed tree, and never takes long journeys, but moves about only in search of food.