HabitatDownies take home in the United States and southern Canada.
They have beenrecorded at elevations of up to 9,000 feet. The downies are not deep-forestedbirds, preferring deciduous trees. Open woodlands, river groves, orchards,swamps, farmland, and suburban backyards are all favorite haunts of the downy. Downies will also nest in city parks. About the only place you won’t find themis deserts.
The most attractive human dwelling sites are woodlands broken up bylogged patches in a waterside area. Downies also enjoy open shrubbery withgroves of young deciduous trees. Call(s) Like the hairy woodpecker, the downy beats a tattoo on a dry resonanttree branch. This drumming is the downy’s song, though they do make some vocalnoises. They have several single-syllable call notes which include tchick, anaggressive social note; a tick and a tkhirrr, which are alarm notes. There isalso a location call, known as a “whinny”, made up of a dozen or more tchicksall strung together.
Scientific Names The downy woodpecker’s scientific name is Picoides pubescens. Thereare also six particular downies with six particular scientific names all fromdifferent regions of the United States and southern Canada which I have listedbelow:southern downy / Dryobates pubescens Gairdner’s woodpecker / Gairdneri pubescensBatchelder’s woodpecker / Leucurus pubescens northern downy / Medianus pubescensNelson’s downy / Nelsoni pubescens willow woodpecker / Turati pubescensThe downy woodpecker is sometimes reffered to as “little downy. “Behavior Towards Humans The downy is unquestionably the friendliest woodpecker. A bird loverin Wisconsin described downies at their feeding station: “The downies will backdown to the suet container on the basswood tree while I sit only a few feet awayon the patio. Even when I walk right up to them, most downies will not fly away,but will simply scoot around the backside of the tree trunk and peek around tosee what I am doing.
If I press them, they will hop up the backside of the treetrunk and then fly to a higher branch. FoodBesides being friendly, downy woodpeckers are our good friends foranother reason. Most of the insects they eat are considered destructive to man’sorchards and forest products. About 75% of their diet is made up of animalmatter gleaned from bark and crevices where insect larvae and eggs lie hidden. While standing on that unique tripod of two legs and and a tail, downies hitchup and down tree trunks in search of a whole laundry list of insect pests. Withtheir special chisel-like bills and horny, sticky tongues, downies are adept atplucking out great numbers of beetle grubs, insect cocoons, or batches of insecteggs.
They also eat spiders, snails, ants, beetles, weevils, and caterpillars,with other local insects included. 25% of a downy’s diet are plants made up ofthe berries of poison ivy, mountain ash, Virginia creeper, serviceberry, tupelo,and dogwood. Downies also eat the seeds of oaks, apples, hornbeams, sumac,hickory, and beach. Acorns, beachnuts, and walnuts are the particular favorites. Dr.
John Confer and his students at Ithaca College have studied thedowny woodpecker’s use of goldenrod galls as a source of food. They discoveredthe downy’s little jackhammer is just the tool needed to drill a hole in theside of the one to two inch goldenrod gall and extract the tiny grub containedinside. In fact, Confer’s studies show that the goldenrod grubs form animportant part of the woodpecker’s winter diet. PlumageTap, tap, tap! Tap, tap, tap! It is interesting how the downy woodpeckerprops itself with those stiff tail feathers while clinging to the bark. The tailrelieves the birds weight.
This unique tripod allows the downy to hop up thetree trunk with ease, but it must back down in the same position, a more akwardmotion. The downy woodpecker gets its name of downy because of its soft finefeathers. The downy, smallest of the woodpecker clan, is not even as big as arobin. It is only about the size of the of a house sparrow at six inches tall. The downy can be separated from all other woodpeckers ~ except the hairy ~ bythe broad, white strip down its back.
The downy and the hairy are often confusedsince their markings are quite similar. Both range across the same territoryexcept the lower southwest where the downy is less often seen. There are reallyonly two ways to distinguish the downy and the hairy. (1) Look at the bill ofthe two birds.
The downy will have a much shorter, stubbier bill. (2) The downyis about 2/3 the size of the hairy. That is another good clue to look for. The downy is most likely to be the one that you see at the feeder, sincethe hairy keeps more to the forest than the downy. However, both will feed atfeeders in the winter months, on suet especially.
The tail, wings, and back of both the downy and hairy woodpeckers have ablack hue intermingled with white spots. A black cap adorns each, below whichthere is a white stripe. A small scarlet patch appears on the lower~back of thehead. Another black stripe is below this. The downies have barred outer tailfeathers not found on the hairies. CourtshipRegardless of the elevation, downy woodpeckers begin thinking aboutnesting earlier than most birds and several months before they actually nest.
After spending the winter alone, the downies seem to come to life in earlyFebruary, moving more quickly and taking more interest in their own species. Their normal tap, tap, tap becomes a quite different unbrokentrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, lasting several seconds. The tapping is no longersimply an effort to find food but a means of communicating to other downies thatthis is “my” territory. It is also the first attempt to attract a mate.
Bothsexes drum. So early does this drumming begin that it is not unusual to hear iton sub-zero mornings. Some ornithologists believe that downy woodpeckers retain the same mateas long as they live. In this case, all the pair has to do in the spring is torenew their pair bonds. This fidelity, however, seems to be a result of anattachment to the nesting site rather than between the birds.
After the drumming has united the pair, the actual courtship begins witha curious dance or “weaving” action by both sexes. With their neck stretched outand bill pointed in line with their head and body from side to side balancing onthe tips of their tail. Their entire body is elongated. There is also a lot offlitting and chasing from one branch to another, and more waving and weaving ofhead and body. Sometimes with wing and tail feathers spread.
Considerablechattering accompanies these gyrations. NestingSometime during the courting period the actual selection of a nestingcavity occurs. The female is usually, though not always, the dominant bird andselects the nesting site. Ounce selected, both birds dig the hole.
Downies willcharacteristically place the nesting cavity 3-50 feet above the ground on theunderside of an exposed dead limb. The pair will alternate digging because onlyone bird at a time can fit into the cavity. As the hole is cut deeper, the birdworking may disappear into the hole and remain out of sight for 15-20 minutes,appearing only long enough to throw out chips. (This is unlike chickadees, whichwill carry their chips away from the nesting site, downies are not concernedabout predators finding chips at the base of the nesting tree.
) Then the pairwill change shifts for 15 or 20 minutes while the other bird digs. Though thefemale does most of the work, this may vary with individual pairs. Regardless,the cavity is finished in about a week. When the cavity is completed, sometime in mid~May, it is shaped muchlike a gourd. The entrance is 1 !/4 inches in diameter.
It is dug straight aboutfour inches, then curves down 8-10 more inches and widens to about three inchesin diameter. At the very bottom, the the cavity narrows to about two inches,where a few chips are left to serve as a nest. It is believed that woodpeckershave been nesting in cavities so long in evolutionary time that nesting materialis no longer used. Chickadees and bluebirds have been nesting in cavities for ashorter period of time, and still build a nest at the bottom of the cavity asthey did when they built their nests in the open.
The eggs, too, reflect this. Species that have been using cavities formany thousands of years, like the woodpeckers, lay pure white eggs. Noprotective coloration is needed when they are hidden in a cavity. Bluebirds andchickadees, on the other hand, still lay eggs with some protective coloration onthem~specks in the case of chickadees and pale blue in bluebirds’ eggs.
Downy woodpeckers lay four to five pure white eggs, which are incubatedby both parents through the 12 days required for hatching. They take turnsduring the daylight hours; the male incubates at night. The downy, like other woodpeckers, will seldom use the same nestingcavity year after year. Instead, the site is taken over the next year bychickadees, titmice, tree swallows, wrens, and sometimes bluebirds. This forcesthe downy couple to drill another nesting cavity each year.
Young Downies When the young hatch, they are naked, blind, helpless, red-colored, andquite unattractive. During the first few critical days after hatching, theadults take turns in the cavity, one brooding the young while the other bird isgathering food. The male usually broods at night. Downies swallow and regurgitate their food to the young for only fourto five days. After that they carry insects and other bugs, primarily spiders,ants, and moths, to the youngsters in their bills.
The older the chicks get, themore food the adults must provide. It isn’t long before the young can be heardchippering in the cavity and both parents are feeding from daylight until dark. At times they are feeding as often as ounce a minute! A few days after hatching, feathers start to grow on the young, and bythe time they are 14 days old, their tail feathers are long enough to supporttheir weight. It is then that they make their first appearance at the cavityentrance.
For the next week, the youngsters spend a great deal of their timetaking turns at the cavity entrance, heads out, chippering loudly, awaiting thenext meal. At 21 to 24 days, the young are ready to leave the cavity on theirfirst flight. A New York observer gave a good acount of a downy family’s lastfew days in the cavity: “The young chattered most of the time during the lasttwo days of nest life. One at a time they looked out a great deal at thestrange outer world. They left the nest on on the eleventh of June. The last two,a male and a female, left during the afternoon, each after being fed at theentrance and seeing the parent fly away.
The young male flew from the nestinghole straight to a tree 60 feet away. His sister quickly followed, lighting onthe trunk of the same tree and following her parent up the bole in the hitchingmanner of their kind as though she had been practicing this vertical locomotionall of her life. ” The observer could distinguish male youngsters from female because theyalready had a slightly different appearance. Like their adult counterparts, theyoung males have red on their heads and the females do not.
The red on the headof the juvenile male is not a small spot on the back of the head as in the adultmale, but a much larger area of red and pink on the whole crown. The youngstersare also somewhat fluffy or “downy” looking. The juvenile female looks like thejuvenile male, without the red crown. This juvenile plumage will be worn but a short time, for all downies,young and adult, molt into winter plumage in September.
Ounce the young have fledged, the parents divide the brood and onlytake care of their charges. The male will usually take one or two of the young,while the female takes the others. According to study, young downies becomeindependent at the age of 41 days. Many people have seen youngsters on suetfeeders in late summer with no apparent adult escort, nor any interest in otherdownies in the area. In fact, the adults will drive off the youngsters at thesuet feeders.
Downy woodpeckers have only one brood a year in the north, butsometimes two in the south. Winter for a Downy By September the downy woodpecker family has broken up, the young ofthe year look like adults, and all become solitary and quiet. As cold weather approaches, the first order of business is to locate awinter roosting cavity. Apparently, downies do not use their nesting cavities aswinter roosts; most birds drill fresh roosts in anticipation of the long winterahead. These preparations, however, are not made at the fast pace of mostother birds in autumn. The species that must migrate to warmer climates seem tobe restless and in such a hurry about everything.
But not the downy. It remainscalm in the midst of the hustle. Such is the personality of the permanentresident. Despite this, there are some studies which indicate that some downies,particularily females, do leave the breeding territory; others don’t.
Thereasons for these variations are not clear. The down’s winter is spent quietly and alone, searching the doormantwoodland for food. The pace of life has slowed, and often its tap, tap, tap isthe only sound to be heard above the wind in the trees. The downy is wellequiped to survive the coldest weather.
It even takes playful baths in the snowpiled high on branches. A woman in Canada described one such incident: “Thismorning a female downy flew to a horizantal branch and proceeded vigorously tobathe in the loose snow lying there. Like a robin in a puddle. Mrs. Downy duckedher head, ruffled her feathers and fluttered her wings, throwing some of thesnow over her back and scattering the rest to the winds. ” The downy woodpecker’s winter food is not unlimited.
The insects aponwhich it survives stopped multiplying when cold weather arrived. As time passes,the bird must search more and more diligently to feed itself. It gets some helpfrom the bands of chickadees, titmice, and nuthatches with whom it shares thewinter woods. Downies will often stay loosely associated with these species asthey cruise the woodlands in search of hidden morsels. But the downy is tiedsomewhat to the area near its roosting hole, since it will return to it everyevening at sunset.
Therefore, the feeding areas surrounding the roosting cavitybecome a downy’s individual winter feeding territory, which it will defendagainst other downies. Backyard feeding stations are the exception. For some unexplainedreason, feeding stations are a “common ground” for all birds in all seasons. Usually (in the right conditions) there will be between six and ten downies atsuet feeders at various times every day during the winter.
There will be fewerduring the summer. That is probably because there is more natural food in thesummer and breeding territories are more rigorously defended. Regardless, thedownies take turns at feeders, abiding by some kind of truce at the suet, thoughthere are often fights over who feeds first. Territorial Disputes When two males or two females come face to face over a territorialdispute, they spread their wings, raise their crests and assume a challengingattitude and scold each other. Most of this is bluff, of course, for they soonsettle down, unless one or the other advances toward a female.
Flight Like the other members of the woodpecker clan, the downy has adistinct undulatin flight that is most evident when it crosses open areas orswoops through woodlands. The dips are not as deep as those of a goldflinch, butas ornithologist Arthur Cleveland Bent said, “It gives the effect of a shippitching slightly in a heavy sea. A few strokes carry the bird up to the crestof the wave~ the wings clapping close to the side of the body~ then, at thecrest, with the wings shut, the bird tilts slightly foward, and slides down intothe next trough. “Enemies ; Camouflage Though no songbird is totally safe from predators, not many downywoodpeckers fall prey to hawks, owls, and other winged hunters.
When attacked,downies are quite adroit at dodging raptors by flitting around the branches oftheir natural habitat. They can also flatten themselves against the bark of atree trunk and become almost invisible to any pursuer. Maurice Thompsondescribed a downy’s defense against a goshawk: “The downy darted through thefoliage and flattened itself against a large oak bough, where it remainedmotionless as the bark itself. The hawk lit on the same bough within a few feetof its intended victim, and remained sitting there for a few moments, searchingin vain.
The black and white feathers of the downy blended perfectly with thebark and lichen on the tree. ” Other enemies, strangely, include house wrens, which have been knownto wait until downies have completed work on their nesting cavaties beforeappropriating the site for themselves. Unbelievable as it may sound, the housewren can be aggressive enough to attack a pair of downies and drive them fromtheir own nesting site to procure the cavity for its own. Squirrels, particularly red squirrels, will destroy the eggs and youngof downy woodpeckers.
Attracting Downies Food, cover, and water are the three basic needs of all wildlife anddowny woodpeckers are no exception. Food and cover definitely take priority overwater, as downies seldom drink at birdbaths. Mature trees in an open woodland are the preferred habitat, but anykind of natural cover is better than none at all. A mixed stand of oaks,basswood, maples, and willows will suit downies perfectly. Food is simple.
Downy woodpeckers love beef suet. Be sure that you getreal beef suet at the butcher shop. So often a butcher will give or sell youbeef fat, which downies will reluctantly eat in the winter. They prefer realsuet, which is the hard, white, opaque fat surrounding the beef kidney. Regularbeef fat has a greasier, translucent appearance. It will also decompose in warmweather and attract flies.
Suet will not. That is why beef suet is reccomendedall year long. It is every bit as successful with downies in summer as winter. Plus, the suet feeder is the place where most of the baby downies are first seenby humans. They are so cute with their red caps and roly-poly appearance. Atfirst a parent bird feeds the youngster suet.
Then it tries to get the youngsterto feed itself. All that free entertainment is yours to enjoy if you put up asuet feeder. Other feeding station foods that downies will eat include peanutbutter (it’s a fallacy that peanut butter sticks in the throats of birds),doughnuts, nutmeats, sunflower seeds, corn bread, and cracked corn kernels. Butbeef suet is by far the most popular with all the woodpeckers. Will a downy woodpecker nest in a bird house? Though most books onattracting birds or building birdhouses give dimensions for downy woodpeckerhouses, there does not appear to be any record of a downy nesting in a man-madehouse.
However, there are records of downies using birdhouses as winter roosts. Special Adaptations The downy has many adaptations, ranging from the tail feathers to thetongue. First of all the downy’s toes are different than most other birds. Instead of having three toes in the front and one in the back, the downy has twotoes in the front and two in back. This arrangement makes the downy’s uniquetripod of two feet and stiff tail feathers more effective.
The toes have alsoadapted another way. The outer hind toe is longer than the rest of the toes tokeep it from swaying. The downy’s tail is also special. Unlike most birds the downy’s tailfeathers are long and stiff. This helps balance the birds weight as it standsvertically on a tree.
Another adaptation of the downy woodpecker is their unusual bill. Itis not pointed like most other birds, but it is chisel-shaped. A chisel- shapedbill makes the downy’s work of carving a nesting and roosting cavity easier. Thebill also helps the downy chip the wood around the insects buried in a tree. Thetongue is also worth noting. At twice the size of the downy’s head, the tongueeasily spears small morsels with a horny tip of recurved barbs.
Yes, even the skull has changed to fit the downy’s needs. The skull ofthe downy is stronger and thicker than most other birds. So logically it is alsoheavier. This extra weight makes the little jackhammer more effective. But most amazing is not how the downy has adapted, it is its skill toadapt.
When European settlers invaded the downy woodpeckers’ territory 200 to300 years ago, the birds did not retreat as did many of our native species. Instead, they accepted as a home the orchards and shade trees with which manreplaced the forests. Our early ornithologists were in agreement when theycharacterized the bird. Audubon remarked in 1842 that it “is perhaps notsurpassed by any of its tribe in hardiness, industry, or vivacity. ” Alexander Wilson said ten years earlier that “the principalcharacteristics of this little bird are diligence, familiarity, perseverance,”and spoke of a pair of downies working at their nest “with the mostindefatigable diligence. ” And so it is today.
The downy woodpecker remains unspoiled andunconcerned by the threats of man. It just quietly flits around the backyardwoodland, tap, tap, tap-ing its way through life.Category: Science
