Woodpecker

I was under this tree picking up the last rounds of cherry to split then I could feel bark hitting me plus landing all around me, what type of woodpecker is this?

zap

Looks like a downy woodpecker.

Thanks Quads, he sure was going to town on that tree.

zap

They're fun to watch, always busy. The downy and hairy woodpeckers look similar, but the downy are a little bit bigger than a chickadee and the hairy are about the size of a robin. Males have some red on their head, females don't.

Good link thanx, I passed it along and saved it for future reference..

Ray

Thanks for that link Rick. Info there verified what we thought about the Cardinals attacking one of the stove room windows.

I'm a little slow on the up-draw sometimes and for a long time could never remember which was which . . . until my much smarter (and prettier than me) wife said, "It's not that hard Jay . . . hairy woodpeckers are huge compared to the downy . . . just think hairy and 'h"." Of course, that was before we saw the pileated woodpecker . . . which truly was huge . . . compared to both the hairy and downy woodpeckers.

The pileated makes me stop and stare in amazement every time I see one. So cool!

Here you go Quads.

Zap

Yep, that's him!

Ok so how do I keep these little monsters from drilling holes in my house ?

Don't let ants or other bugs play House in your home . . . no bugs = no woodpeckers drilling holes in your house . . . at least that's been my experience and I have a feeder with suet blocks located not more than 10 feet away from my cedar shake covered house.

I've heard that some people have this problem and the woodpecker is not eating bugs but either attracting a mate of scaring other males off.

Don't know what a cure would be for mating and / or territorial rituals , but maybe one or some of those wire thingies that boaters use to keep sea gulls from perching on their boats would work.


Some might suggest a fake predator , but I've seen seagulls perched on fake owls, so I don't think that works too well.

Maybe they were really dumb seagulls and were attempting to mate . . . a sea owl? owl gull? seagowl?

Had 1 pecking at a standing aluminum ladder, for days & until I took the ladder down, so to make the noise so try similar & it might keep him off your house.

The idiots hammer the east side of the house early in the morning when the sun starts to come up and hits it . I have lots of them around here on a warm calm day in the morning you can here them all over drilling .
As far as the bugs I had one pecking at the cinder block on my chimney .......must have been concrete bugs.