Woodpeckers are familiar backyard visitors and these two in particular are so similar we thought we’d help you distinguish which ones you may have at your feeding stations. Both the Downy Woodpecker and the Hairy Woodpecker are fun to spot and easy to attract: simply offer suet or our feed of the month (Woodpecker Mix) and you’ll see these feathered friends become frequent visitors.

General Woodpecker Fun Facts:

Woodpeckers drum to attract mates, establish territories and communicate. They can peck up to 20 times per second! But woodpeckers don’t get headaches. They have reinforced skulls that are structured to spread the impact force along with their tightly cushioned brains.

Universally, in flight, Woodpeckers have 3 flaps then a glide.

Woodpecker’s tongue is 4″ long and wraps around its skull.

The active little Downy Woodpecker is a familiar sight at backyard feeders and in parks and woodlots, where it joins flocks of chickadees and nuthatches, barely out sizing them. An often acrobatic forager, this black-and-white woodpecker is at home on tiny branches or balancing on slender plant galls, sycamore seed balls, and suet feeders. Downies and their larger lookalike, the Hairy Woodpecker, are one of the first identification challenges that beginning bird watchers master. Downy Woodpeckers are small versions of the classic woodpecker body plan. They have a straight, chisel-like bill, blocky head, wide shoulders, and straight-backed posture as they lean away from tree limbs and onto their tail feathers. The bill tends to look smaller for the bird’s size than in other woodpeckers. Downy Woodpeckers give a checkered black-and-white impression. The black upper parts are checked with white on the wings, the head is boldly striped, and the back has a broad white stripe down the center. Males have a small red patch on the back of the head. The outer tail feathers are typically white with a few black spots.

The larger of two look alike, the Hairy Woodpecker is a small but powerful bird that forages along trunks and main branches of large trees. It wields a much longer bill than the Downy Woodpecker’s almost thorn-like bill. Hairy Woodpeckers have a somewhat soldierly look, with their erect, straight-backed posture on tree trunks and their cleanly striped heads. Look for them at backyard suet or sunflower feeders, and listen for them whinnying from woodlots, parks, and forests. A medium-sized woodpecker with a fairly square head, a long, straight, chisel-like bill, and stiff, long tail feathers to lean against on tree trunks. The bill is nearly the same length as the head. Hairy Woodpeckers are contrastingly black and white. The black wings are checkered with white; the head has two white stripes (and, in males, a flash of red toward the back of the head). A large white patch runs down the center of the black back.

Click below to hear the Downy Woodpecker.

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