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Soon after sunrise on a gray morning in early September, I heard a tentative, rhythmic tapping outside my study window. I couldn’t locate the bird — I think he or she was next door working on one of the box elders — but know it to be a Downy Woodpecker from the exploratory sound of the tapping. Was it one of the pair that nested in the big Norway maple in the side yard?
I never found the nest. It was probably in some partially decayed branch high in the tree. The little black and white . woodpeckers, just over five inches long, were always around: tapping, calling the familiar pick, note and, on occasion, I heard the whinnying “song” that descends in pitch.
Both male and female were frequent visitors tp the feeder for 9uet, Lee Trott’s bird pudding and, on rare occasions, a sunflower seed. Downy Woodpeckers are a familiar and, to me, an essential element of the backyard bird life here in Flint Hill.
In these mild days of early September, Lee Trott and I are enjoying meals at the round table in our side yard. We watch a female Downy Woodpecker as she visits the suet feeder. I say female, though it may be a young male. The bright red spot on the back of the head of the young male does not appear until after his autumnal molt when he replaces all feathers with bright new ones.
Like all woodpeckers, the downy lives in a vertical world as he clings to the trunk of the maple tree with zygodactyl toes; two in front and two behind. Other birds in the yard — chickadees, titmice, cardinals and robins — have a three-in-front and onebehind toe arrangement. This is effective in perching across a twig and walking or hopping on the ground.
Woodpeckers also have stiff tail feathers that they use
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