How to tell downy and hairy woodpeckers apart

I wrote Sunday about the relatively rare appearance of a hairy woodpecker in our yard. But there’s more to the story!

First off, after the male hairy woodpecker appeared in the morning, I looked out the window during lunch to find a female hairy woodpecker on the feeder. That gives me hope that a breeding pair may have moved into the neighborhood.

But a short while later an even more remarkable sight appeared. As I looked out to the feeders, I saw the male hairy woodpecker on the suet feeder again, and beside him on the tube feeder was a downy woodpecker.

What good fortune! Telling those two birds apart is difficult, especially when they are each seen in isolation. But now I was seeing one of each species clamped onto our feeders, about two feet from one another.

I grabbed my camera and started shooting. At one point, the downy — as they often do — popped over to the post holding up the two feeders. The bird moved to the far side and eventually came around to the right, in profile. I just missed getting the two birds back to back. But I did get the photo below showing the downy spreading its wings to get back to the tube feeder and its nyjer seed.

The photo topping this post gives a clearer picture distinguishing the two species, the smaller downy with its wee beak and the larger hairy with its protruding beak.

A while after I put the camera down and finished editing my photos, I looked up to see a red-bellied woodpecker stabbing at the suet.

Who knows? Maybe someday I’ll have three species of woodpeckers snacking on those feeders simultaneously.

I’ll probably faint. 🦅