Downey Woodpecker – Bird Art Print on Wood

From start to finish in about 4 minutes

This listing is for a limited edition, fine art print of my original painting of a Downey Woodpecker called, “Well, Would You Look At That”

This portrait is of a sweet little downey woodpecker. There’s a big cedar tree in my backyard that seems to attract all sorts of birds…woodpeckers, hummingbirds, a really annoying mockingbird, and I’ve even seen a Cooper’s hawk stop by from time to time. But I think my favorite to watch are the woodpeckers. The way they scramble around the trees, slamming their faces into the wood over and over… It’s a wonder they don’t always have headaches.

from AllAboutBirds.org:

Where they occur, Downy Woodpeckers are the most likely woodpecker species to visit a backyard bird feeder. They prefer suet feeders, but are also fond of black oil sunflower seeds, millet, peanuts, and chunky peanut butter. Occasionally, Downy woodpeckers will drink from oriole and hummingbird feeders as well.

Cool Facts

• In winter Downy Woodpeckers are frequent members of mixed species flocks. Advantages of flocking include having to spend less time watching out for predators and better luck finding food from having other birds around.
• Male and female Downy Woodpeckers divide up where they look for food in winter. Males feed more on small branches and weed stems, and females feed on larger branches and trunks. Males keep females from foraging in the more productive spots. When researchers have removed males from a woodlot, females have responded by feeding along smaller branches.
• The Downy Woodpecker eats foods that larger woodpeckers cannot reach, such as insects living on or in the stems of weeds.
• You may see them hammering at goldenrod galls to extract the fly larvae inside.
• Woodpeckers don’t sing songs, but they drum loudly against pieces of wood or metal to achieve the same effect. People sometimes think this drumming is part of the birds’ feeding habits, but it isn’t. In fact, feeding birds make surprisingly little noise even when they’re digging vigorously into wood.
• Downy Woodpeckers have been discovered nesting inside the walls of buildings.
• The oldest known Downy Woodpecker was a male and at least 11 years, 11 months old when he was recaptured and rereleased in 1996 during banding operations in California. He had been banded in the same state in 1985.