Its
mission in life is to rid the trees of insects, which hide beneath the bark,
and with this end in view, the bird is seen clinging to the trunks and
branches of trees through fair and wintry weather, industriously scanning
every inch for the well-known signs of the boring worm or destructive fly.
In the autumn the male begins to excavate his winter quarters, carrying or
throwing out the chips, by which this good workman is known, with his beak,
while the female may make herself cosey or not, as she chooses, in an
abandoned hole. About her comfort he seems shamefully unconcerned. Intent only
on his own, he drills a perfectly round hole, usually on the underside of a
limb where neither snow nor wind can harm him, and digs out a horizontal
tunnel in the dry, brittle wood in the very heart of the tree, before turning
downward into the deep, pear-shaped chamber, where he lives in selfish
solitude. But when the nesting season comes, how devoted he is temporarily to
the mate he has neglected and even abused through the winter! Will she never
learn that after her clear-white eggs are laid and her brood raised he will
relapse into the savage and forget all his tender wiles?
The hairy woodpecker, like many another bird and beast, furnishes much
doubtful weather lore for credulous and inexact observers.
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