I’ve been told this is a female downy woodpecker…but if you know better let me know. She’s the smallest of the woodies that visit my yard.
She hangs out at my house so I really should address her properly!
Am I a woody?
3 thoughts on “Am I a woody?”
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Colleen, You are correct, it is a female downy woodpecker. A male would show red on the back of the head on the white stripe above the eye. A hairy woodpecker looks quite similar but is larger by about 2 inches in length. A hairy woodpecker’s beak appears to be much longer, about the same length as its head from front to back. That’s a good way to tell them apart, by the relative beak size. A good place to check your bird ID is Cornell’s site:
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Downy_Woodpecker
Gary THANKS for the link to the oCrnell site. That is awesome. I was looking in my birds of the NW guide but they had the hairy but not the downy and I knew this one was too small and the beak not right either. My friend said downy and then it seemed right. So now I have Pileated, hairy, downy, and flickers at my house!
THANKS again.
She’s pretty.