A New Commodious Home

The young golden woodpeckers are ready to fly, but they dallied at the nests edge, a little wary, reluctant to take flight. At last one daring young fellow can resist the "call of the wild" no longer and, pushing his companions aside, essays with uncertain flight to reach his parents, guided by the direction of the sound. But it may be half an hour or even a full hour before his brother can muster the necessary courage to follow, and so a couple of hours or more may elapse before the whole family, one by one, has vacated the nest. The young flickers are now fully three weeks old and measure eight inches from the point of the beak to the tip of the tail.

Flickers sometimes return to the same nest in consecutive years, and in early spring may be observed examining the previous home, evidently discussing its merits as an abode for another season. Being of a peaceable disposition they are occasionally deprived of their prospective quarters by other (even much smaller) birds in search of a residence. Our Georgia flicker was in the second year unfairly ousted from his domicile by a pair of bluebirds, who had discovered a passage thereto through the rotten wood at a lower level. After a brief squabble the flickers gave in and departed. But Fate was in their favor! The nest of the robber bluebirds having been espied and destroyed by wanton urchins, our flickers promptly returned, true to the familiar tree.

Last year's nest was carefully inspected, but now pleased them no longer, so the male bird set to work to excavate a new nest-hole at twice the distance up the trunk. Obviously such faithful adherence to the old spot was deserving of reward in the form of practical aid, so with auger and chisel in hand the tree was scaled and our flicker helped along at his task, a goodsized aperture being made at the place where the bird had just started to bore. This assistance was appreciated and our industrious flicker followed it up with nearly a month's hard work, and in that space of time scooped out a cavity twenty inches deep.

To facilitate study of flicker life, the writer now sawed the nest into sections, afterwards replacing these removable members and fastening them with suitable catches. It was surprising how little all this tinkering disturbed the flickers; it seemed almost as though they felt themselves to be in friendly company, for evincing no uneasiness, they diligently removed such chisel chippings as had remained in the nest, and, giving the bottom of the cavity a final touch to suit their taste, the happy pair quietly settled down in their new commodious home.