The holiday made it difficult to concentrate on birds this week. Memorial Day is set aside to honor and remember deceased members of our armed forces, and I could think of little besides the flying flags with their stars and stripes of red, white and blue.
From those colors, though, came inspiration.
A red, white and glossy blue-black bird -- the red-headed woodpecker -- is a fairly common resident of western Pennsylvania from May through September, and an irregular visitor the rest of the year.
Its nicknames include "flag bird" and "patriotic bird."
These handsome woodpeckers may be seen or heard in open deciduous woodlands, orchards and prairie country, although the species is uncommon over most of its range. Still, pairs may be heard during the breeding season producing loud calls -- "queark" or "churr churr, churr churr" -- or trills, like a chicken like clucking "ker-r-r-ruck, ker-ruck-ruck, ruck ruck." Woodpeckers also may be heard tapping on the seasoned limbs of hardwood trees. These birds have no need for song.
The red-headed woodpecker is a member of the Woodpecker Family, or Picidae (PIS-ih-dee). The name, from the Latin picus , means woodpecker.
There are about 200 woodpecker species worldwide, with 23 reported in North America. They aren't considered songbirds; instead, woodpeckers are distinguished by their zygodactylous feet, with two toes pointing forward and two toes backward, a configuration that helps them cling to the rough bark of trees.
After the introduction in the 1890s of European starlings that competed with woodpeckers for nesting holes, the red-headed species declined in number through the early 1970s. Now it is listed as a species of special concern by the National Audubon Society because of habitat loss, collisions with cars and the widespread use of creosote-coated utility poles, which are lethal to its eggs and young.
Red-headed woodpeckers are about 8.5 to 9 inches long, with a wingspan of 16 to 18 inches. Both males and females of this tricolored species have spectacular plumage. The adult's entire head, neck and upper breast are bright red. The upper back is a glossy bluish black, and the underparts are white. The black wing coverts, long, black primaries and black tail are separated vividly by large, white, secondary patches.
I have seen redheaded woodpeckers only twice. The first time was many years ago at Presque Isle, near Erie, where my family watched, spellbound, as adult birds took turns feeding a brownish-feathered youngster clinging to a telephone pole.
The second sighting came while I was teaching at an elementary school in Fort Allen. A young friend, Susan Woodward, proudly took me to her home to show me the huge, hollow tree where a pair of red-headed woodpeckers was raising a family. The young birds do not wear the tri-colored plumage, so I saw brown-headed babies stretching to get the grubs delivered by both parent birds.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, in his "Song of Hiawatha," relates a legend about how the red-headed woodpecker got its color. The Indian hero was sent to kill the giant Megissogwon, an evil magician who had spread sickness among the people. Hiawatha was unable to harm him until Mama, the woodpecker, gave him a hint: "Aim your arrows, Hiawatha,/
At the head of Megissogwon,/ ... There alone can he be wounded!"
Hiawatha followed the bird's advice, and he killed the giant. To show his thanks, Hiawatha dipped the bird's feathers into the blood of the slain evil-doer.
To this day, Longfellow writes, the woodpecker "wears the tuft of crimson feathers/ As a symbol of his service."
