Due to their small size, Downies not only forage on the trunk but on smaller limbs as well as weed stalks and shrubs. Sap consumption is more common in the winter and bark foragingoccurs more in the summer. Downies are common at backyard feeders where they may eat suet. Mainly insects, as well as seeds and berries. Open deciduous woodlands, orchards, shade trees, willow groves, backyards, and city parks Female Downy Woodpecker (Image by David Horowitz) They are more common in the East than the West. They are rarely seen in the Southwest United States. Male Downy Woodpecker (Image via )ĭownies are found throughout the majority of the United States and Canada, with the exception of extremely northern Canada. A Downie’s bill is about half the width of their heads. Their heads are boldly striped, and males have a red patch that the female lacks. Their underparts are white and their tails are mainly white with some black spots. Their upperparts are black with white checkered patterns on their wings and a white stripe down their backs. The little Downy is acrobatic, versatile, and found throughout most of the country.ĭowny Woodpeckers are black and white with straight chiseled bills and wide shoulders. Gerald McKeating’s Birds of Ottawa is very useful too.Today’s Woodpecker of the week is the smallest Woodpecker in North America: the Downy. We also depend a lot on Roger Tory Peterson’s and David Sibley’s field guides. Our two main online sources for information about birds are Both downy and hairy woodpeckers eat insects, but the downy is also inclined towards berries and acorns which accounts for its stubbier bill. Its body averages 23 centimetres long but the hairy can grow up to 33 centimetres. The hairy woodpecker’s bill is much longer and chisel-like. Ironically, the field mark that we cannot see in the field but which shows sometimes in a photograph is the tuft of bristles at the base of the downy’s bill. The downy is a much smaller bird than the hairy, only 15 centimetres long from head to tail tip. At first glance their plumage is so similar many people, including us, have great difficulty keeping them straight. Numbers four and five are the downy and hairy woodpeckers. Look for this woodpecker on tree trunks beside the holes it has made. It laps up the sap and any insects captured in the stickiness. The yellow-bellied sapsucker taps out a series of small holes in rows, each hole just deep enough to allow sap to flow. To our feeble eyes it looks much like a hairy woodpecker, but its behaviour sets it apart. It spends a lot of its time on the ground foraging for beetles and other insects.Īnother member of the woodpecker family is the yellow-bellied sapsucker, one which we identified at the cottage only recently. Adults can grow to almost 32 centimetres. One of the easiest woodpeckers to identify is the northern flicker which is also large and brownish overall but richly patterned with black spots, bars and crescents. The two sexes have similar black and white colouring with a red cap, but the male has an additional red stripe on his cheeks. In the spring, we have seen a courting pair once or twice, and late last summer we managed to photograph juvenile siblings who were well advanced in the growth of their adult plumage. Pileated woodpeckers drill distinctive rectangular holes in rotten wood to get at insects. Growing to almost 42 centimetres, it is large and industrious, hollowing the trunks of dead or dieing trees for nests. Of the five types of woodpeckers we see at White Lake, the pileated woodpecker is our favourite. We know it is not the pileated woodpecker because it would not knock politely at the door it would wallop the door … thud, thud, thud. We know it is not a person … it is a woodpecker, but is it a downy or a hairy? One of us grabs a camera to try to catch the shot. The tapping is really in the trees that are close to the bedroom. Some early mornings, as we lie in bed enjoying the sunrise through the bedroom window, we are rattled by a rat-a-tat-tat at the door.
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