Downy Woodpecker
A bird a day keeps the chaos away
Downy Woodpecker
DOWO
Dryobates pubescens
ORDER: Piciformes
FAMILY: Picidae
Madison County, Indiana, January 2021
The active little Downy Woodpecker is a familiar sight at backyard feeders and in parks and woodlots, where it joins flocks of chickadees and nuthatches, barely outsizing them. An often acrobatic forager, this black-and-white woodpecker is at home on tiny branches or balancing on slender plant galls, sycamore seed balls, and suet feeders. Downies and their larger lookalike, the Hairy Woodpecker, are one of the first identification challenges that beginning bird watchers master.
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For more information about identifying birds, we suggest the following websites:
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology
These little darlings are among my favorites because, like the stalwart black capped chickadee, they stick with us through the long cold Minnesota winters. 🥰
Woodpeckers daily brought joy to my home. The rap-rap-rap on our metal chimney pipe … then, the answers from adjacent chimneys. Laughter every morning; gifts from our tiny dinosaurs.