By the Roadside (Dunn and Troxell)/An Upside-down Bird

Downy, Red Head, and the other woodpecker cousins are not the only birds that take care of the trees. They pull out the grubs and beetles that have made their homes inside the trunks.
No other birds can do this. Only the woodpeckers have chisel bills and hammer heads to cut through the wood. So no others can break into the homes of the wood grubs.
But the inside of the tree is not the only part that needs to be protected. Caterpillars eat the leaves. Bugs suck the juices from the twigs.
​Birds like the orioles and summer yellowbirds are protectors of the leaves. They pick off hundreds of chewing caterpillars and sucking bugs.
The best time of all to catch caterpillars and bugs is before they begin to crawl, before they have feet. That is when they are eggs, hidden in the bark.
There are many tiny insects, too, that live in the bark of trees. Little as they are, though, they eat great holes in trees.
So there are bird protectors who take care of the bark of trees. That is what the nuthatches do. A nuthatch does not have a stout bill that can dig into the trunk of a tree. He does not need it.
It takes many of these wee insects and insect eggs to make a breakfast or a dinner. The nut

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