Thread: The TJTwitter
View Single Post
  #31  
Old January 30th, 2010, 05:30 PM
hazelrunpack's Avatar
hazelrunpack hazelrunpack is offline
The Pack's Head Servant
Chopper Challenge Champion, Mini KickUps Champion, Bugz Champion, Snakeman Steve Champion, Shape Game Champion, Mumu Champion, Mouse Race Champion
 
Join Date: Oct 2006
Location: Just east of the Hazelnut Patch, Wisconsin
Posts: 53,771
I forgot about the woodpeckers

All the eastern male woodpeckers have red on the head. The most common are the downy, the hairy, and the red-bellied (which doesn't have much of a red belly ). The pileated also has a red crest (that's the Woody Woodpecker type ) and the red-headed woodpecker (which migrates south for the winter from these parts) has a totally red head.

The hairy and the downy look pretty similar to each other but the hairy is half again as big as the downy. The hairy also has a proportionately longer bill than the downy does. The next two pics show the same suet feeder with two different female woodpeckers, one a downy, the second a hairy.

Name:  downy.jpg
Views: 452
Size:  40.2 KB Name:  Hairy wp at suet 1-11-10.JPG
Views: 499
Size:  98.5 KB
Look at the bill size--the downy's bill is proportionately shorter. And although the absolute size of the downy's image is bigger, see how the bird is dwarfed by the suet cage? The hairy sort of wraps herself around the bottom of the suet cage. The downy looks like it could crawl into the feeder; the hairy wouldn't fit very easily

This last one is a red-bellied:
Name:  red-bellied.jpg
Views: 481
Size:  37.1 KB
__________________
"We are--each of us--dying; it's how we live in the meantime that makes the difference."

"It's not what you gather, but what you scatter that tells what kind of life you have lived!"

"Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle."
Reply With Quote