Length: About 9¾ inches; nearly as large as a robin.

General Appearance: A black and white bird with entire head and neck bright red.

Male and Female: Head, neck, throat, and upper part of the breast brilliant red; upper part of back and wings black; longer wing-feathers or primaries also black; lower back and secondary wing-feathers white; under parts white; tail pointed, black, margined with white. In flight, the areas of red, black, and white are very distinct.

Young: Brown heads and necks, mottled with black; upper parts of backs barred with light brown. The other parts of their bodies resemble those of their parents.

Note: No song, but a loud, cheerful Quir-r-r-k? Quir-r-r-k? and a drumming sound, similar to that made by other woodpeckers.

Habitat: Open woods, groves of beeches preferred.

Nest: In hollow tree-trunks or telegraph-poles.

Range: From southeastern British Columbia, to Ontario, south to the Gulf Coast, and from central Montana, Colorado, and Texas east to the valleys of the Hudson and Delaware; rare in New England. Irregularly migratory in the northern parts of its range.

This conspicuous bird is one of the handsomest members of the Woodpecker family. He is the only one really entitled to the name of Red-Headed Woodpecker. His male relatives wear only small skull-caps placed on their crowns at various angles; he possesses a sort of toboggan-cap pulled down over his head and tucked into his black coat and white vest-front.

Many stories and legends are told of this woodpecker. He is the delight of children in localities where he is to be found. I remember how I used to look for the red hood and the black shawl worn over a white dress, especially noticeable in flight. I never tired of watching one of these birds approach his nest in a tall dead tree with food in his mouth. At a signal from him, his wife’s red head would appear in the doorway. She would emerge; he would then enter and remain with the children until her return.

Redheads have not been popular with farmers, who have accused them of various crimes. They have been caught eating small fruit and corn on the ear, destroying both the eggs and young of other birds, and boring holes in telegraph-poles in which to build their nests. While individuals may be guilty of such misdemeanors, the redheads are probably neither so black nor so gory, except in plumage, as they are painted.

These woodpeckers are not such persistent destroyers of insects as others of their family. They have a decided preference for beetles, but eat fewer ants and larvÆ than do the Downy and Hairy woodpeckers. They are exceptionally fond of vegetable food; their preference for beechnuts is very great. Dr. C. Hart Merriam states that in northern New York, where the redhead is one of the commonest woodpeckers, it subsists almost exclusively on beechnuts during the fall and winter, even pecking the green nuts before they are ripe and while the trees are still covered with leaves. He has shown that these woodpeckers invariably remain throughout the winter after good nut-yields and migrate whenever the nut-crop fails.[75]

“In central Indiana during a good beechnut year, from the time the nuts began to ripen, the redheads were almost constantly on the wing; passing from the beeches to some place of deposit. They hid the nuts in almost every conceivable situation. Many were placed in cavities in partly decayed trees; and the felling of an old beech was certain to provide a feast for the children. Large handfuls were taken from a single knot hole. They were often found under a patch of raised bark, and single nuts were driven into cracks in the bark. Others were thrust into cracks in gate-posts; and a favorite place of deposit was behind long slivers on fence-posts. In a few cases grains of corn were mixed with beechnuts. Nuts were often driven into cracks in the end of railroad ties, and the birds were often seen on the roofs of houses pounding nuts into crevices between the shingles. In several instances the space formed by a board springing away from a fence was nearly filled with nuts, and afterwards pieces of bark and wood were brought and driven over the nuts as if to hide them from poachers.”[76]

In summer, Dr. Merriam has seen the redheads “make frequent sallies into the air after passing insects, which were almost invariably secured.” He has also seen them catch grasshoppers on the ground in a pasture.

They are cheerful, active birds, with a call like that of a giant tree-toad. Their brilliant plumage has unfortunately made them a good target for sportsmen.