Downy Woodpecker (Picoides pubescens)

Downy Woodpeckers are enchanting birds.  They have a bouncy flight pattern which my old dog used to imitate by hopping across the lawn after his friend “Woody”.  I am certain that Woody enjoyed teasing him.  The dog and Downy Woodpecker were best friends for many years.  It was quite a sight to see.

The Downy woodpecker has black and white feathers, his wings looking almost checkered.  The male has a red patch at the back of his crown feathers.  Downy Woodpeckers are small birds at only 6 ¾ inches or 17 centimeters.  There is another  woodpecker which looks identical in his markings to the Downy but he is larger.   He is called the Hairy Woodpecker. 

Woodpecker bills are chisel-like.  Nature designed them perfectly for the excavation of grubs and boring insects which burrow into the cambium layer beneath the outer bark of trees. The cambium layer of a tree is a spongy layer under a tree’s bark which draws up nutrients from the earth, like drinking through a straw.  If the cambium layer of a tree is badly damaged by insect larvae the tree will die.  Woodpeckers help greatly in keeping a forest healthy. 

Biologists believe that by tapping with their bills and then listening, they can hear where insects are at work under the   thick tree bark.   Their long claws make them very surefooted when they climb trees.  Their stiff tails help them with balance when they are climbing.

The woodpecker nests high up in mature trees.  He will hallow out a space as high as 50 feet (15 metres) in the trunks of mature, very often dead, trees. 

Woodpeckers lay 5 to 7 eggs.   For two weeks, both parents, taking turns, incubate the white eggs.  The fledglings leave the nest after approximately two weeks.

In Swedish the woodpecker is called Ragnfagel which means Rain bird, possibly because their tap-tapping on hollow trees sounds like raindrops on the wooden surfaces.

Certainly on rainy days, woodpeckers often come to bird feeders for a shelled unsalted peanut or a bit of suet and he always brings a little sunshine into the hearts of bird watchers.

The Latin name for the Downy Woodpecker is Picoides pubscens.