![]() ![]() Another adaptation is that the upper and lower halves of the bird’s beak are uneven, and as force is transmitted from the tip of the beak into the hyoid bone, the unevenness lowers the force transmitted to the brain. One is the hyoid bone, a looping structure around the entire skull that may serve as a “safety belt”. How do they not get a headache or suffer serious damage to their brain? There are likely a number of adaptations involved. ![]() Cells in the tip of the beak are constantly being replaced, preventing them from being worn down.ĭoes it hurt their head to pound? A woodpecker may chisel away at wood up to 10,000 times in a single day, each strike at least 1,000 times the force of gravity. How are woodpeckers able to drill through wood? Woodpeckers have what are called chisel beaks, allowing them to excavate live or dead wood in search of food or to create a nesting cavity. With fewer birds and foliage, winter is a great time to start learning our year-round birds so that you're ready to build your knowledge once the migrants arrive in spring! Not to mention, most of the birds that winter in Vermont are charismatic and exciting to spot outside. And if so, take a closer look at the overall size, the ratio of beak to head length, and if possible, the outer tail feathers (spots versus plain).This is the first of a series of posts that will encourage students to learn about different bird adaptations, winter survival, and identification. So, if our yard Downy pair is any indication of a few more Downy’s in our area, you may come across them. In researching a bit more, I found out that the Downy’s call is a “quiet, friendy ‘pic’” while a Hairy’s diagnostic “pic” call is stronger and louder, more like an attention-grabbing squeaky dog toy. I was fortunate to have these male woodpeckers (red markings on the head) visit the same suet feeder within a few minutes of each other, letting me capture both birds with my camera. It is darker, with its length equivalent, nearly, to the entire length of the head.Īnother key mark is to look at the outer tailfeathers, which are white with black spots on the Downy and plain white on the Hairy. Whereas the Hairy’s bill is an obvious power tool. A Downy’s bill is approximately the same length as the distance from the base of the bill to its eye. A Downy’s bill is tiny at times when flitting around or pecking at suet, you can barely see it. In the above images, perhaps one of the easiest diagnostic markings is the size of the bill relative to the bird’s length of the head. A Hairy is medium-sized, averaging 9” in length (think of a Townsend’s Solitaire or a slender American Robin) and a Downy is more like our Western Bluebird, averaging about 6” in length. ![]() So let’s take a look!Īs you can see from these two comparison images, using the suet cage as a marker, the Hairy Woodpecker is approximately 50% larger than a Downy. It just so happened that one morning, both made an appearance at the same place at our suet feeder, and I was able to get photos of each. I know this from a few diagnostic markers that scramble together in my brain, which spits out “it’s a Hairy!” However, lately, we’ve had a pair of Downy Woodpeckers regularly visiting our feeders, and I found myself stumbling on the specific differences of each when asked by my husband “which one is which?” I would say 99 times out of 100, the Hairy/Downy-looking woodpecker at our feeders will be a Hairy. ![]() For me it comes to the “jizz” (feel and look of the bird) than anything else. In the over four decades (ouch!) I’ve been a birder, I’ve gotten pretty good at calling a Hairy Woodpecker a Hairy Woodpecker and a Downy Woodpecker a Downy Woodpecker. ![]()
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