King of the Downies? (bid Downy Woodpecker)

[ramcewan]

EDIT: I did some looking and found out that this larger one is in fact a hairy woodpecker.

Today I saw a downy woodpecker that was about twice the size of all the other downy woodpeckers. He was bigger than the red bellied wood peckers even.

Here is a normal size male downy woodpecker


P1208315_1 by ramcewan, on Flickr

Here is the big one (same branch btw)


P1278490 by ramcewan, on Flickr

on the feeder


P1278505 by ramcewan, on Flickr

a normal sized one on the feeder


P3170740 by ramcewan, on Flickr

So what do you fine people of Steve's think of this big bird?

[Mugmar]

Nice little bird. The ones around here are very camera shy.

[jjdog2]

Originally Posted by ramcewan

EDIT: I did some looking and found out that this larger one is in fact a hairy woodpecker.

When I first took a look I thought that might be a Hairy, nice shots.

jj

[Steven R]

Nice captures.

[ramcewan]

Originally Posted by Mugmar

Nice little bird. The ones around here are very camera shy.

Thanks Mugmar, I am lucky that I can use my house as a blind, I can sit and have my morning coffee with the laptop at the kitchen table 20 feet from the window, the tree and feeder are on the other side of the window. When I see an interesting bird I get up and creep to the window with the camera, using the 300mm I can usually stand a few feet away from the window and for the most part the birds don't notice me on the other side of the window.

Originally Posted by jjdog2

When I first took a look I thought that might be a Hairy, nice shots.

jj

Thanks JJdog2, I was not aware of the larger downy doppelganger until I looked up birds that look like downy woodpeckers and discovered it was in fact a different bird. I think I may have another photo of a hairy that I miss identified as a downy.

This makes three types of woodpeckers visiting my feeder; red bellied, downy and hairy. The other one I know is out there in the woods but I have yet to capture is the pileated. They don't tend to visit feeders or come in close so all I have captured of this bird is the damage it does with distinctive rectangular-shaped holes like this


P2260365 by ramcewan, on Flickr

Maybe when spring and summer returns I will try to stalk this one, I have seen it a couple of times in the woods but only from very far away and only briefly.

Originally Posted by Steven R

Nice captures.

Thanks Steve for checking them out!

[jjdog2]

Good luck with the Pileated, hard bird to get close to.

jj