A female downy woodpecker

I don't see female downy woodpeckers very often but it's for a few explainable reasons. Females don't have the bright red head we normally associate with woodpeckers; only the males have the bright red coloration on their heads.  Female downys are easily confused with nuthatches. I say easily confused because for each bird you have to make the correct identification quickly, they just don't sit for long and the females do look somewhat similar. Both birds also occupy the holes in trees that we usually associate with just woodpeckers, leading to even more confusion. So I may see downy females more often than I think. Male and female downy woodpeckers divide up where they look for food in winter. Males feed more on small branches and weed stems and females feed on larger branches and trunks. Males keep females from foraging in the more productive spots. Woodpeckers don't sing songs but  drum loudly against pieces of wood or metal to achieve the same effect. A woodpecker is in the top picture and a nuthatch is in the bottom picture.


 




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