5. Hang a bone or piece of unsalted suet out of doors for the woodpeckers. They will enjoy an unexpected feast.
6. Where does downy make his nest?
III. THE SAPSUCKER.[87]
If you are walking through an orchard or wood and see a jolly little woodpecker with red on its head, do not say at once that it is a downy woodpecker. Look again. Has it yellow on the underparts, black on the breast, a red throat, and red on the crown instead of on the nape? Then it is a sapsucker, a new arrival. ([Fig. 328].) It is larger than the downy. The female has no red on the throat.
And to think that such a merry little fellow has such a bad reputation among farmer-folk! You will be surprised to find how unkindly woodpeckers are treated throughout the country, because of the misdeeds of the sapsucker. Even the downy has suffered much abuse. This is unfortunate, for I am sure downy woodpeckers have done much more good than sapsuckers have done harm.
I wish that all Junior Naturalists would try to find out whether even the sapsucker deserves all that has been said against him. He does harm by boring holes in trees, but how much? Let us learn. As woodpeckers are not shy, it is not difficult to get near them. I have stood within a few feet of a sapsucker, and he did not mind a bit. He kept on boring holes in a tree without a thought that any one might object.
1. How many trees can you find that have holes bored by the sapsucker?
2. How are the holes arranged; here and there on the trunk, or in rings around it? Have you ever found a complete ring of holes?
3. Keep a record of the months in which you find the sapsucker.
4. Notice how the sap runs down into the holes that have been newly made by a sapsucker.