There’s this idea some woodpeckers evolve to look similar to larger / more dominant woodpeckers that live in the same area, to take advantage of rep established by a tougher beast, without having to invest in the body size to get tougher themselves. I proposed in another article that “oregon morph” dark-eyed juncos may be doing the same thing with spotted towhees. (My idea will be studied by actual scientists when hell freezes over.) The go-to example in this area is downy woodpeckers trying to look like hairy woodpeckers.
They look similar enough, how can I know which one I’ve seen? The one I distinctly recall was seen at a very great distance, which is precisely where my sense of scale breaks down. Can I be sure I could tell the difference between a woodpecker six inches long and one that’s eight inches long, from seventy feet away? It just seemed like such a small bird, I have to think it was the smaller of the two. I could very easily be wrong.
Where was this rare beauty? Near the top of a tall scraggly tree amid concrete on concrete, the Federal Way Transit Center. There was more appropriate habitat for it in parks and residential area around lakes not far at all, as the bird flies, but that’s not where I saw it. They could look almost like any old songbird, with more sparrowish proportions than most other woodpeckers, but they’re all black and white, not especially cryptic, and they hang onto trees vertically, without the flattened posture of a creeper or nuthatch.
Not an amazingly exciting bird, but it’s nice to know they’re around. And that’s not a bad gig, impersonating a more successful person to gain their social cachet. If I got a toupee and wore foundation, I could kinda look like Matt Damon, hawk crypto on Superb Owl Sunday, make a bank full of funny money. Watch out!
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We have a woodpecker which comes to our feeder. At first they were having a hard time at it, the rail was too small for them to perch comfortably so it was mainly hanging upside down. So I attached a 3″ vertical branch under the rail, and now they are as comfortable as can be.
This one has also discovered that it likes fruit. I’ve never heard of that before, but we have some oranges out for the oriels (who appear to be nesting somewhere nearby and are still visiting), and we have discovered the woodpecker also eating the orange fruit.
a pileated woodpecker? i’d be curious who this perverse frugivore be.
It is a red-bellied woodpecker, and they are omnivores. Although it did surprise us when they started on the oranges. They seem to stay in our area year-round, probably because over the last 50 years a couple acres have grown from an apple orchard to a walnut grove. There are plenty of good food and nesting sites in our little woodlot.
We don’t see pileated woodpeckers. I’ve only seen one, in the spring of 2020. It stayed a couple of hours in the treebreak between our plot and the neighbors, tearing open a rotten log for the carpenter ants. Those things are big, and it just about destroyed the log. Even though we live in what is called a rural area, we’re probably a little too urban for them.
i’ve seen pictures of those woodpeckers but have not seen them when in their geographical range. pileated are not too shy about urban areas if they have a good enough supply of moderately tall trees, like south king county. they do tend to stay high up so easy to miss if they aren’t calling attention to themselves.