Voice.—The downy woodpecker is by no means a noisy bird; compared to the red-headed woodpecker, with its loud rattling calls, or to the shouting, boisterous flicker, it is quiet and demure. Nevertheless, we cannot be for long near one of these little birds, hidden high among leafy branches, before we learn of its presence. Within a few minutes, long before we catch sight of it, we are almost certain to hear its voice.
Its call note is a single abrupt syllable, like tchick. Although this note is of sufficient volume to carry a considerable distance, it is not a loud note even when heard at short range. As in the case of many bird notes, it is recognizable from the voice of any other bird hereabouts once we have become familiar with it, yet it is not easy to say how it differs from numerous other calls that might be suggested by the same letters. I believe one characteristic of the note that helps us distinguish it is its shortness—it is over almost as soon as begun, like a dot in the telegraph code. But in spite of being sharp, it is a modest little sound; it does not ring through the woods like the wild call of the hairy woodpecker.
Another note is a long whinny made up of a dozen or more tchicks. These increase in rapidity soon after the beginning of the series, and the pitch drops rather sharply. Near the close, the volume diminishes, and the whinny ends with a “dying fall.”
Elizabeth Sampson (1934) brings this note very clearly to our mind when she speaks of it as “a handful of his staccato notes * * * flung out in a rapid run, gaining speed as they came, till they almost tumbled over each other at the end.”
This whinny is also given, although not often, without any fall in pitch.
The downy woodpecker has other notes in its vocabulary, some of which are described under courtship, but, compared to the two noted above, they are rarely heard. It may be that some of these notes are only modifications of the call note, uttered with a slightly changed inflection. One, a single short note, has a distinct vocal quality.
Of the young birds in the nest, Dr. Arthur A. Allen (1928) says that they “keep up an incessant chippering, especially when they get the least bit hungry, and at times they sound almost like a bee-hive, from the ground.”
After the young birds have left the nest, I have often heard them give a series of tchicks similar to the whinny of the adults, but in a weaker voice and all on the same pitch. However, this note evidently varies, for Francis H. Allen says in his notes that the young have also a rattle resembling the kingfisher rattle of D. villosus, but fainter and falling in pitch like the similar note of the adult.
Field marks.—The downy, the smallest of our woodpeckers, may be separated at once from any other woodpecker, except the hairy, by the broad white stripe down the back.
The hairy is half again as large as the downy, but in situations where comparative size counts little, the downy may be recognized by its short bill—no longer than its head. The hairy’s bill is longer even in proportion to the size of the bird.