This week’s featured creature, the downy woodpecker, is a bird that is as common in suburban yards as it is in rural areas.

A downy woodpecker is a small black and white bird that visits suet feeders. Listen to their call and see photos of males and females.

A downy woodpecker has been clinging to our suet post for many minutes. The large snowflakes drifting down are piling up between the bird’s breast and the post.

Every season is woodpecker season in North Carolina, so it’s not uncommon to hear a bird or two rappin’ on nearby trees or the outside of your house. Though the birds do the most damage ...

As a result, I get to observe a great deal of downy woodpecker behavior and in the months of June and July, this means I get to watch bedraggled parents trying to keep their freshly-fledged offspring ...

The bird house must be painted to match the bark on the tree in order for the little downy to accept it. In addition, downy woodpeckers need several boxes, as they are used for multiple purposes.

Even if not officially extinct, the ivory-billed woodpecker’s absence from our native fauna leaves a lamentable ecovoid. Nonetheless we still have pileated woodpeckers, as well as others.

Sightings of the highly secretive ivory-billed woodpecker continue though most ornithologists believe the birds no longer inhabit the earth.

The red patch can be used in courtship displays. Hairy woodpeckers are readily distinguished visually from the similar-looking and closely related downy woodpeckers by size.

Every season is woodpecker season in North Carolina, so it’s not uncommon to hear a bird or two rappin’ on nearby trees or the outside of your house. Though the birds do the most damage ...