Ways of Wood Folk eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 166 pages of information about Ways of Wood Folk.

Ways of Wood Folk eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 166 pages of information about Ways of Wood Folk.

Nature intended him to get his living, as do the other woodpeckers, by boring into old trees and stumps for the insects that live on the decaying wood.  For this purpose she gave him the straight, sharp, wedge-shaped bill, just calculated for cutting out chips; the very long horn-tipped tongue for thrusting into the holes he makes; the peculiar arrangement of toes, two forward and two back; and the stiff, spiny tail-feathers for supporting himself against the side of a tree as he works.  But getting his living so means hard work, and he has discovered for himself a much easier way.  One now frequently surprises him on the ground in old pastures and orchards, floundering about rather awkwardly (for his little feet were never intended for walking) after the crickets and grasshoppers that abound there.  Still he finds the work of catching them much easier than boring into dry old trees, and the insects themselves much larger and more satisfactory.

A single glance will show how much this new way of living has changed him from the other woodpeckers.  The bill is no longer straight, but has a decided curve, like the thrushes; and instead of the chisel-shaped edge there is a rounded point.  The red tuft on the head, which marks all the woodpecker family, would be too conspicuous on the ground.  In its place we find a red crescent well down on the neck, and partially hidden by the short gray feathers about it.  The point of the tongue is less horny, and from the stiff points of the tail-feathers lamina are beginning to grow, making them more like other birds’.  A future generation will undoubtedly wonder where this peculiar kind of thrush got his unusual tongue and tail, just as we wonder at the deformed little feet and strange ways of a cuckoo.

The habits of this bird are a curious compound of his old life in the woods and his new preference for the open fields and farms.  Sometimes the nest is in the very heart of the woods, where the bird glides in and out, silent as a crow in nesting time.  His feeding place meanwhile may be an old pasture half a mile away, where he calls loudly, and frolics about as if he had never a care or a fear in the world.  But the nest is now more frequently in a wild orchard, where the bird finds an old knot-hole and digs down through the soft wood, making a deep nest with very little trouble.  When the knot-hole is not well situated, he finds a large decayed limb and drills through the outer hard shell, then digs down a foot or more through the soft wood, and makes a nest.  In this nest the rain never troubles him, for he very providently drills the entrance on the under side of the limb.

Like many other birds, he has discovered that the farmer is his friend.  Occasionally, therefore, he neglects to build a deep nest, simply hollowing out an old knot-hole, and depending on the presence of man for protection from hawks and owls.  At such times the bird very soon learns to recognize those who belong in the orchard, and loses the extreme shyness that characterizes him at all other times.

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Ways of Wood Folk from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.