Their belly feathers are off white with a reddish tinge. Females are similar to males but lack the red hind neck.
A bird lover in Wisconsin described downies at their feeding station: Food Besides being friendly, downy woodpeckers are our good friends for another reason. While standing on that unique tripod of two legs and and a tail, downies hitch up and down tree trunks in search of a whole laundry list of insect pests.
With their special chisel-like bills and horny, sticky tongues, downies are adept at plucking out great numbers of beetle grubs, insect cocoons, or batches of insect eggs. They also eat spiders, snails, ants, beetles, weevils, and caterpillars, with other local insects included.
Downies also eat the seeds of oaks, apples, hornbeams, sumac, hickory, and beach. Acorns, beachnuts, and walnuts are the particular favorites.
Plumage The downy woodpecker gets its name of downy because of its soft fine feathers. The downy, smallest of the woodpecker clan, is not even as big as a robin. It is only about the size of the of a house sparrow at six inches tall.
The downy and the hairy are often confused since their markings are quite similar. Both range across the same territory except the lower southwest where the downy is less often seen. There are really only two ways to distinguish the downy and the hairy. The downy will have a much shorter, stubbier bill.
That is another good clue to look for. The downy is most likely to be the one that you see at the feeder, since the hairy keeps more to the forest than the downy. However, both will feed at feeders in the winter months, on suet especially. The tail, wings, and back of both the downy and hairy woodpeckers have a black hue intermingled with white spots.
A black cap adorns each, below which there is a white stripe. A small scarlet patch appears on the lower-back of the head. Another black stripe is below this.
The downies have barred outer tail feathers not found on the hairies. Courtship Regardless of the elevation, downy woodpeckers begin thinking about nesting earlier than most birds and several months before they actually nest.
After spending the winter alone, the downies seem to come to life in early February, moving more quickly and taking more interest in their own species.
Their normal tap, tap, tap becomes a quite different unbroken trrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, lasting several seconds. It is also the first attempt to attract a mate. So early does this drumming begin that it is not unusual to hear it on sub-zero mornings.
Some ornithologists believe that downy woodpeckers retain the same mate as long as they live. In this case, all the pair has to do in the spring is to renew their pair bonds. This fidelity, however, seems to be a result of an attachment to the nesting site rather than between the birds.
With their neck stretched out and bill pointed in line with their head and body from side to side balancing on the tips of their tail.The shy and little-known helmeted woodpecker shares the red crest, black back, and barred underside of two larger woodpeckers—Dryocopus lineatus and Campephilus robustus—all of which occupy the same habitat and share similar food preferences.
Study area and methods I found the nest in a small grove of aspens in the Perins Peak Wildlife area miles west of Durango, La Plata County, Colorado. About a quarter of their diet consists of plant material, particularly berries, acorns, and grains. Downy Woodpeckers are common feeder birds, eating suet and black oil sunflower seeds and occasionally drinking from hummingbird feeders.
The downy woodpecker is found throughout most of the United States and Canada except for Hawaii, the Southwest, and northern Alaska and Canada. Habitat The downy woodpecker lives in woodlands, parks, and yards.
The explanatory power of food availability can be applied to the eight species of woodpeckers that commonly occur in Maine. Six of these species do not migrate at all. The most common of these are Downy Woodpecker, Hairy Woodpecker, Red-bellied Woodpecker and Pileated Woodpecker. Clicking on reference links within the text of this report will bring you to its full details in this section: the reference sought will be at the very top of your view.