This is Bird Note.

The red-headed woodpecker spends its summers in farm yards, open woodlands, and treeed suburbs,

snatching insects from midair in flashy acrobatic flight.

Bugs are harder to come by in the winter, of course, so this type of woodpecker moves south,

but not always. When autumn sees a bumper crop of acorns, beech nuts, and other large seeds.

The birds stock up and linger in the north to feed through the winter.

Not all woodpeckers are efficient food hoarders.

The anthropologist George A. Dorsey once watched a young red-headed woodpecker

stuffing acorns into a hole in a telephone pole.

What that bird hadn't noticed was that the hole went all the way through to the other side of

the pole, where the acorns he'd just stashed proceeded to tumble to the ground.

No word on whether that red-headed woodpecker

stayed through the winter or found his cupboards shockingly empty and decided to migrate south.

For Bird Note, I'm Michael Stein. Bird Note gives you the sounds of birds every day.

And you can get the sites as well when you follow us on Instagram.

At BirdNote Radio.