Wryneck [M] Greater Spotted Woodpecker [F]
Green Woodpecker [M] Lesser Spotted Woodpecker [M]
THE LESSER SPOTTED WOODPECKER DEUDROCOPUS MINOR
Forehead and lower parts dirty white; crown bright red: nape, back, and wings black, with white bars; tail black, the outer feathers tipped with white and barred with black; iris red. Length five inches and a half; breadth twelve inches. Eggs glossy white.
This handsome little bird resembles its congeners so closely, both in structure and habits, that it scarcely needs a lengthened description. Resident in England but rare in Scotland and Ireland, owing to its fondness for high trees and its small size it often escapes notice. It lays its eggs on the rotten wood, which it has either pecked, or which has fallen, from the holes in trees; they are not to be distinguished from those of the Wryneck. Lately (1908) a Scottish newspaper recorded the shooting of "that rare species, the Spotted Woodpecker!" "The man with the gun" is incurable.
Upper plumage green; under, greenish ash; crown, back of the head, and moustaches crimson; face black. _Female_--less crimson on the head; moustaches black. Length thirteen inches; breadth twenty-one inches. Eggs glossy white.
One of the most interesting among the natural sounds of the country, is that of the
Woodpecker tapping the hollow beech tree:
yet one may walk through the woods many times and hear no tapping at all, and even if such a sound be detected and traced to its origin, it will often be found to proceed from the Nuthatch, who has wedged a hazel-nut into the bark of an oak, than from the hammering of a Woodpecker. Yet often indeed it may be observed ascending, by a series of starts, the trunk of a tree, inclining now a little to the right, and now to the left, disappearing now and then on the side farthest from the spectator, and again coming into view somewhat higher up. Nor is its beak idle; this is employed sometimes in dislodging the insects which lurk in the rugged bark, and sometimes in tapping the trunk in order to find out whether the wood beneath is sound or otherwise. Just as a carpenter sounds a wall with his hammer in order to discover where the brickwork ends and where lath and plaster begin, so the Woodpecker sounds the wooden pillar to which it is clinging, in order to discover where the wood is impenetrable alike by insects and itself, and where the former have been beforehand with it in seeking food or shelter. Such a canker-spot found, it halts in its course, tears off piece-meal a portion of bark and excavates the rotten wood beneath, either as far as the fault extends or as long as it can find food. It is, then, by no means a mischievous bird, but the reverse; as it not only destroys a number of noxious insects, but points out to the woodman, if he would only observe aright, which trees are beginning to decay and consequently require his immediate attention. This aspect of the Woodpecker's operations is the right one and not the old idea that 'it is a great enemy of old trees in consequence of the holes which it digs in their trunks', as some old writer states.