This female Downy Woodpecker was very busy finding lunch on this rotting tree branch in the woods yesterday, allowing me to take my time for a few pictures.
I have to admit that when I opened the full-size images in Photoshop, I thought this might be a Hairy Woodpecker. The Downies I see at my feeder seem to have more fuzzy feathers at the base of their beaks, whereas this bird’s beak seemed a little longer and less fuzzy. Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers are often confused, so I went to my fellow birders on our Google Group for help. Within minutes they all agreed this is a female Downy Woodpecker
According to Cornell, if this were a Hairy Woodpecker, the black collar at its would neck extend to the upper breast in a comma shape, and the beak would be about as long as its head. It would also be about 9 to 13 inches long, whereas the Downy is between 6 and 7 inches.
I’ve yet to identify a Hairy Woodpecker in the wild, so I was a little disappointed to have been incorrect about this bird’s ID. In any event, I do appreciate that she wasn’t bothered by my (or Happy’s) presence. She really was digging intently, as you can see.
