Birds useful and birds harmful

by Ottó Herman; J. A. Owen

This Woodpecker is indefatigible in its work of hacking trees and dragging out worms; it flies in a curve from tree to tree, always beginning its climb from the bottom; finds out the weak places in the tree, in which it pecks holes so that it can reach the insects in them with its long tongue, and so furnish itself with a meal. It is equally busy on the ground, with the ant-heaps, which it bores into. Then when the ants collect together it flings out its long sticky tongue; the ants are caught on it, as on a lime twig, and so they find their way in to the stomach of the bird. The Woodpecker carries on this business also in winter, when he breaks through the hard frozen side of the ant-hill, and surprises and decimates the inhabitants while in their winter sleep.

It is a noisy bird whose “klu-klu-klu-klu” echoes through the wood, breaking in on many a lonely hour for the woodman; a real blessing in the orchard, and a skilful surgeon for invalid trees; on that account it deserves protection and care.

In this country it is fairly common.

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This is the largest and best known of our English Woodpeckers, and it occurs in most of our wooded districts south of Derbyshire and Yorkshire. In the northern counties it only breeds occasionally. In Scotland it is little known and from Ireland it is also practically absent. In England, too, it is very local in its occurrences. The song which roused my imagination most in childhood’s days was that one with the refrain about “The woodpecker tapping the hollow beech tree.” And the fact that as I listened to it I could only gaze out of the old-fashioned bow windows of a town house, which looked out over a sloping expanse of smoky chimneys, made the idea of the Woodpecker tapping mysteriously suggestive and attractive. Since then I have heard it in many a country—the green species and its relatives, and the song takes me always back to the old home and the mother’s side by the piano.

Windy March found me one morning in a pleasant wooded district in Suffolk. Above the tossing of the branches of the great elms, as the gale rushed over, sounded the notes of the Mistle-Thrush, fitly named the storm-cock, singing out his defiance to the weather, as he swayed on the topmost bough of an old cedar across the lawn. He is one of the earliest heralds of spring, and is never daunted by the weather, though it revert to wintry wildness. On the same lawn, well kept though it be, if we look out early enough, we may see a pair of Green Woodpeckers. Last evening, when for a time all was hushed and still, the well-known yiking laugh of the Yaffil, as Chaucer called him, came over from the avenue, whence, too, had sounded his busy drumming. Then he and his mate were busy getting the grubs that had bored deep down in the timber, but now come up near the bark of the trees in order to get the warmth necessary for their development. In the early morning hours, when the watchful gardener has not yet appeared, the pair tear holes in his well-tended lawns with their feet, and hack at the turf with strong bills to get at the grubs below. They feed indeed largely on ground grubs throughout the year, as well as on ants in summer, and timber-haunting grubs and beetles.

The Lesser Spotted species, although not so widely distributed, is even more common in the south of England, and near London. One was shot lately in Scotland, as “a very rare bird.” It is probably chiefly owing to the cutting down of old forests that they are not found in Scotland. Now and again they may even be seen in Kensington Gardens.

We have no picture of the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocopus minor). It is perhaps oftener present with us than is supposed, being smaller than its relatives. Also it frequents taller trees. I have seen numbers of these bright busy creatures in Hungary, in the poplars, along the river Waag, in the foothills of the Carpathians. Its colouring is much the same as the Greater Spotted species, only the markings are different and it is only just over five inches in length, whereas its near congener is just over nine inches. The male bird makes the same loud vibrating noise in the trees as the latter.

The Green Woodpecker is 12 inches in length. The mantle is bright olive-green. The crown of the male bird, as far down as the nape, is fiery red, also the moustaches. The lores and cheeks black, is less crimson on the head of the female, and the moustaches are black. The outer feathers of the wing are nearly black with white flecks. It has two front and two back toes; the claws, strong, curved and adapted for clinging. The tail feathers strong and suitable for pressing. Beak leaden-grey, strong, with an edge like an adze; worm shaped tongue which can be greatly extended. Having selected a suitable tree, it makes its nest hole at a medium height, with a narrow entrance and lays in it six—sometimes, but rarely—eight dazzling snow white eggs.

USEFUL.