The difference which this species exhibits in the sound of its notes has always been a matter of interest to me they fall upon the ear as if the bird were suffering from a severe catarrh, and yet may be heard at times at the distance of a hundred yards. The young remain in or about the nest until able to fly well. In so far as I have been able to discover, this species produces only one brood in a season. The eggs are seldom more than four in number they measure one inch and half an eighth in length, three-fourths of an inch in breadth, are of an elliptical form, smooth, pure white, and translucent. The hole is bored in the ordinary manner. I never found its nest in Louisiana or South Carolina but it is not uncommon to meet with it in Kentucky and from Maryland to Nova Scotia these birds breed in all convenient places, usually more in the woods than out of them, although I have found their nests in orchards in Pennsylvania, generally not far from the junction of a branch with the trunk. Its flight is strong and better sustained than that of the Yellow-bellied or Hairy Woodpeckers, and, like the Golden-winged species, it not unfrequently alights across the smaller branches of the trees, a habit which, I assure you, is oftener exhibited than has been supposed, by all our species of this interesting tribe of birds. It is a lively and active bird, fond of rolling its tappings against the decayed top-branches of trees, often launching forth after passing insects, and feeding during winter on all such berries as it can procure. In autumn it frequently occurs in the corn-fields, where it takes its share of the grain, in common with the Hairy, the Downy, and other Woodpeckers. It is generally more confined to the interior of the forests, especially during the time of its breeding, than the Hairy Woodpecker, although in winter I have found it quite as easily approached. RICHARDSON, in the Fauna Boreali-Americana.
It appears, however, that it does not inhabit the Fur Countries, as no mention is made of it by Dr. It is, however, less common in the United States than the Hairy Woodpecker but its range is as extensive, for I have found it from the Texas to the extremities of the British provinces of Nova Scotia, and as far inland as I have travelled. Perhaps it partly obtained this name from the numbers of it cooked by the crew in the same manner as the dish known to sailors by the same name. Indeed, on this account, and from its well-known notes, the officers and men of the United States' schooner Spark, as well as my assistants, always spoke of it by the name of chaw-chaw. John's river, where on any day it would have been easy to procure half a hundred. In winter I have found the Red-bellied Woodpecker the most abundant of all in the pine barrens of the Floridas, and especially on the plantations bordering the St. Much of what I have said respecting the habits of several of our Spotted Woodpeckers applies to the present species, which differs, however, in the greater extent of its migration in the spring and summer months, when the greater number of those which return from the south to our Middle and Eastern Districts proceed considerably farther northward than the Hairy Woodpecker, although not so far as the Canadian. Read more about these species in our Bird Guide: Hairy Woodpecker, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Northern Flicker, Lewis's Woodpecker, Red-breasted Sapsucker Plate 416 Hairy Woodpecker, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Red-shafted Woodpecker, Lewis' Woodpecker, Red-breasted Woodpecker
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