Handbook of Nature-Study · Lesson XVI · Topic 2: Bird study: birds to know
16. The red-headed woodpecker
Goal: Your child can tell the red-headed woodpecker from the downy by its all-red head, and describe how it catches insects and stores food.
You'll need
- Binoculars
- A bird book or app with a picture and the call of the red-headed woodpecker
- Colored pencils (red, black, white)
- Nature notebook
What's in the book
The leading thought, the method (questions on the blackboard and a prize for the first note on where the red-head stores his winter food) and four questions about its colors, nest and eggs, food and food stores, and its note and drumming. A long passage by John Burroughs about woodpeckers drumming in spring follows.
The lesson, step by step
When and where
Spring through fall, in open country with scattered big trees: farm edges, open woods, parks, golf courses. In fall and winter look in oak woods, where they store acorns. Red-headed woodpeckers are scarcer than in Comstock's day, so if you don't find one, use a bird book or app and look for any woodpecker drumming.
Keep the big idea in mind
Read this to yourself:
The red-headed woodpecker has very different habits from the downy and is not so useful to us. It lives upon nuts and fruit and such insects as it can catch upon the wing.
Find it, or picture it
Can you tell the red-head from the other woodpeckers? What colors especially mark his plumage?
The whole head is red, the back is dark, and there are big white patches on the wings. Compare it with your downy drawing from Lesson XIV.
What does it eat?
What have you observed the red-head eating? Have you noticed it storing nuts and acorns for the winter? Have you noticed it flying off with cherries or other fruit?
Comstock offered a prize to the first child who found where a red-head hid its winter food. Make it a family challenge.
Drumming
What is the note of the red-head? Have you ever seen one drumming? What did he use for a drum? Did he come back often to this place to make his music?
Read aloud a little of the Burroughs passage, where he says the downy "is rapping at the door of spring."
Nest
Where does the red-head nest? Describe eggs and nest?
Comstock's teacher's story says it digs a hole in a tree, a stump or even a telegraph pole. Watch nests only from a distance, never touch or take a nest or eggs (that is against the law for most wild birds in the United States), and back away if the parents scold.
Put it into words
Ask your child how the red-head lives differently from the downy. Then share the leading thought.
Nature notebook
Draw a red-headed woodpecker beside a downy, both in color. Label one difference in looks and one difference in habits.
Afterwards
On still spring mornings, listen for drumming and try to find the drummer.
Tip
Comstock calls this bird less useful than the downy. Bird lovers today value every native woodpecker, and the red-head is one many people work to protect.