With rattled call
To warn his foes.
Downy Woodpecker
Dendrocopos pubescens
The sparrow-size Downy Woodpecker resembles his robin-size cousin, the Hairy Woodpecker, but his notes are a little softer and his tapping a little faster for his short bill can produce no such wallop as the heavy-billed Hairy. The outer tail feathers are barred, instead of the black and white pattern of the latter. Both males show a red spot on the nape which is lacking on the females. General coloring is black and white.
While this friendly little woodpecker relishes suet, he does not let his visits to your feeder interfere with his constant search for the larvae which he finds in galls, cornstalks, weed stems or the bark of trees. He makes a small opening into the tunnel where the larvae are hiding, then inserts his long tongue and spears the worm. Nature has provided him with a barbed spear on his long tongue and he uses it constantly in protecting our trees.
Spring brings much activity for a nesting site must be found, then the labor of digging a cavity from 8 to 12 inches deep in a post, dead limb or tree trunk. The home may be near the ground or high in some tree and often is found with the entrance beneath a limb. There the young are protected until they can join their parents in their search for insects.
It seems absurd for such a bird
To work so hard, we know
But every worm must learn to turn