On September 16, 1929, a flight of red-headed woodpeckers (_Melanerpes erythrocephalus_) was observed passing over the marshes at the head of Sandusky Bay, Ohio. The birds were flying in little groups of two to five against a stiff southwest wind heading nearly south and at an elevation of sixty to eighty yards. Rather more than half of them were immature birds but the old and young were not segregated. I was hunting ducks at the time and counted forty-eight woodpeckers passing in a little more than two hours. They apparently came from Ontario and probably crossed Lake Erie by way of Point Pelee and Bass Island which would make the flight over water only about nine miles. It was interesting to note that each successive group of birds followed exactly the same route over the marshes although those that had gone before were well out of sight. _Winter._--The red-headed woodpecker is generally considered to be a migratory species throughout the northern portion of its breeding range, but its movements seem to depend almost entirely on the abundance or scarcity of its winter food supply, mainly acorns and beechnuts; when these nuts are available in considerable quantities, this woodpecker is to be found in reasonable numbers within its summer range in the northern States. When Dr. C. Hart Merriam (1878) referred to it as remaining occasionally in northern New York, Lewis County, in winter, some of his ornithological friends were skeptical. He says: I therefore wrote to my friend, Mr. C. L. Bagg, asking him to send me a lot of red-headed woodpeckers as soon as possible, and in a week’s time received a box containing over twenty specimens,--all killed in Lewis County and when the snow was three feet deep! This was proof positive. Notes kept by Mr. Bagg and myself during the past six years show that they were abundant here during the winters 1871-72, 1873-74, 1875-76, and 1877-78; while they were rare or did not occur at all during the winters of 1872-73 and 1876-77. Their absence was in no way governed by the severity of the winters, but entirely dependent upon the absence of the usual supply of beechnuts. While the greater portion of nuts fall to the ground and are buried beneath the snow far beyond the reach of the woodpeckers, yet enough remain on the trees all winter to furnish abundant subsistence for those species which feed on them. * * *