My father told me all about the birds and the bees, the liar – I went steady with a woodpecker till I was twenty-one.

A Bob Hope quotation

Red-bellied Woodpecker

The Red-bellied Woodpecker, Melanerpes carolinus, is a medium-sized woodpecker of the Picidae family.

Identification Tips:
• Length: 8.5 inches
• Medium-sized woodpecker
• Pale gray face, throat, breast, and belly
• Back strongly barred with black and white
• Black wings barred and spotted with white
• White bases to the primaries appear as white crescent in the hand in flight
• White rump and uppertail coverts with sparse dark markings
• Dark tail with black and white barring on the central retricies

Adult male:
• Red cap extending from bill to nape

Adult female:
• Red nape patch, gray crown, and red spot above bill

These birds mainly search out arthropods on tree trunks. They are omnivores, eating insects, fruits, nuts and seeds. They may also catch insects in flight. Their breeding habitat is usually deciduous forests.

Predators of adult red-bellied woodpeckers include birds of prey such as sharp-shinned hawks and Cooper’s hawks, black rat snakes and house cats.

 

 

My father told me all about the birds and the bees, the liar – I went steady with a woodpecker till I was twenty-one.

By Bob Hope

 

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My father told me all about the birds and the bees, the liar – I went steady with a woodpecker till I was twenty-one.

 

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