The red-headed woodpecker (Melanerpes erythrocephalus) – easily recognisable by its red or crimson head, neck, throat, and upper breast – is a small to medium-sized woodpecker from temperate North America. Unusually for woodpeckers, it forages for food rather than excavate holes to find insects. It is the only woodpecker that covers its cache of food with bark or wood. Grasshoppers are stored alive, wedged so tightly in a crevice escape is impossible.