Acorns, beachnuts, and walnuts are particular favorites.ĭr. Downies also eat the seeds of oaks, apples, hornbeams, sumac, hickory, and beach. 25% of a downy’s diet are plants made up of the berries of poison ivy, mountain ash, Virginia creeper, serviceberry, tupelo, and dogwood. They also eat spiders, snails, ants, beetles, weevils, and caterpillars, with other local insects included. With their special chisel-like bills and horny, sticky tongues, downies are adept at plucking out great numbers of beetle grubs, insect cocoons, or batches of insect eggs. While standing on that unique tripod of two legs and a tail, downies hitch up and down tree trunks in search of a whole laundry list of insect pests. About 75% of their diet is made up of animal matter gleaned from bark and crevices where insect larvae and eggs lie hidden. Most of the insects they eat are considered destructive to man’s orchards and forest products. Foodīesides being friendly, downy woodpeckers are our good friends for another reason. A bird lover in Wisconsin described downies at their feeding station: “The downies will back down to the suet container on the basswood tree while I sit only a few feet away on the patio. The downy is unquestionably the friendliest woodpecker. The downy woodpecker is sometimes referred to as “little downy.” Behavior towards Humans Gairdner’s woodpecker / Gairdneri pubescensīatchelder’s woodpecker / Leucurus pubescens There are also six particular downies with six particular scientific names all from different regions of the United States and southern Canada which I have listed below: The downy woodpecker’s scientific name is Picoides pubescens. There is also a location call, known as a “whinny”, made up of a dozen or more tchicks all strung together. They have several single-syllable call notes which include “tchick”, an aggressive social note which are alarm notes. This drumming is the downy’s song, though they do make some vocal noises. One study has shown that a Downy Woodpecker needs at least four to five snags per acre to meet its needs for nesting and foraging.Like the hairy woodpecker, the downy beats a tattoo on a dry resonant tree branch. If you want to provide good habitat for woodpeckers, consider leaving the dead tree snags in and around your yard.Red-bellied Woodpeckers will eat fruits, insects, an occasional frog or lizard and they have even been observed eating the eggs of chickens.Northern Flickers will often roost at night on the side of a tree or structure instead of inside a nesting cavity.Northern Flickers spend about 75% of their time foraging on the ground in search of ants.They also feed on the many insects that are attracted to the sweet sap. These holes fill up with sap, when the sapsucker returns it soaks up the sap with its brushy-tipped tongue. Sapsuckers can drill as many as fifty holes per hour into trees.The Pileated Woodpecker is the second largest North American woodpecker at 19' in length hopefully the Ivory-billed is still the largest at over 20.'.This probably results in higher rates of winter survival, especially in the submissive females. Studies have shown that Downy Woodpeckers with access to bird feeders are in better nutritional condition than their peers.When threatened by predators, Downy Woodpeckers will freeze motionless against the trunk of a tree and will not return to normal activities for up to ten minutes.They rely on the other birds for early warning of predators by recognizing their alarm calls. In order to increase their security and feeding efficiency, Downy Woodpeckers will often flock and forage together with chickadees, titmice, nuthatches and Hairy Woodpeckers.The average life-span of a Downy Woodpecker is two to five years, although some may live up to twelve years old.Downy Woodpeckers typically excavate new roosting cavities during the autumn months over a period of three to seven days.

During the winter, Downy Woodpeckers have to peck deeper into trees to find insects and favor trees with rough bark since they hold more over-wintering insects than smooth-barked trees.Downy Woodpeckers have been recorded to eat at least 44 different kinds of insects, including beetles, ants, weevils, aphids and the eggs of grasshopper, katydids and crickets.Bird of the Month - Woodpeckers Fun Facts About Woodpeckers

Downy woodpecker flying