In a message dated 2/11/03 6:28:10 PM Eastern Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:


> After watching blackbirds/ thrushes on grass land (lawn) listening for worms
> and grubs - I again
> presume that woodpeckers do the same.
>
I have read that thrushes "hear" the earthworms with their feet!  I suppose
it's actually feeling the vibration, which is actually what our ears do isn't
it?

I also read that woodpeckers listen to the grub inside a trunk.  Then their
seemingly random rapping on the trunk disturbed the grub whose resultant
movement then locates their whereabouts to the bird.  Some time ago I was
clearing a stand of rotting elm trees.  By this time the small twigs were
gone and I could find large 3/8 inch to 1/2 inch wide white grubs an inch or
more long.  By rapping on the trunk and putting my ear close I think I heard
them.  I was listening for a rustle but what I heard was more of a crunch
which I then reasoned was their gnawing their way through the rotten wood.

Thus I tend to believe that the birds hear or feel the grubs presence and
woodpeckers stimulate the grubs' response by rapping at various places until
they zero in.  I know that rapping on a hive does cause the bees to move and
create a buzzing noise which I am sure the birds become aware of.

Someone asked if anyone had seen a woodpecker eat bees.  I have not, but an
old beekeeper who sold me his hives in the early eighties told me that he was
once troubled with woodpeckers.  He said that once inside his hive they would
eat the grub.  He showed me old combs he said the woodpeckers had destroyed.
Their centres were missing, looking much like mouse damage to me, being only
familiar with the latter.

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