The Downy Woodpecker is North America's smallest woodpecker and Michigan's most familiar one — a sparrow-sized bundle of black-and-white checkering, the male wearing a red spot on the back of the head. Downies work slender branches, weed stalks, and even goldenrod galls that heavier woodpeckers can't perch on.
They're year-round residents of nearly every wooded habitat in the state, from UP forest to city street trees, and dependable visitors to suet feeders. In winter they join chickadee flocks; in late winter their soft drumming — a rapid roll on a resonant branch — is territory-song by other means.
Insects, larvae, and insect eggs pried and picked from bark make up most of the diet; seeds and berries supplement it. At feeders: suet first, sunflower chips second, and they'll sip at hummingbird feeders in summer.
Size and bill. The Downy is small with a stubby bill barely half the depth of its head; the Hairy is robin-sized with a bill nearly as long as its head is wide. Downy outer tail feathers also show small black spots.
Drumming is their song — a loud, resonant surface broadcasts territory ownership better than wood does. It's seasonal and does no structural damage; it usually stops by early summer.
No — they forage on insects in dead and dying wood, which is closer to pest control than harm. Excavation is limited to soft, decayed wood for nest and roost holes.
Yes — Downy Woodpeckers are present in Michigan in every month of the year. Numbers stay fairly steady from month to month. Birds are easier to detect in the breeding season, when they are singing and displaying, so a quiet winter month can feel emptier than the population actually is.
Juveniles of both sexes show a red or reddish patch on the crown, rather than the adult male's neat red patch at the back of the head. It fades over their first fall, so a red-capped Downy in summer is a young bird, not an odd adult.
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