A male hairy woodpecker is a regular visitor to my peanut butter feeders, also sampling from the suet from time to time. In a previous year, a male brought a juvenile with him almost every day — ...

The night was clear, calm and bright. The waxing gibbous moon reflects off the snow that fell yesterday before the skies cleared and the temperature dropped. It was about 15 degrees below zero at dusk ...

Claim to fame: Perhaps the hairy woodpecker’s main claim to fame is that it is the bird most commonly misidentified as its smaller and more abundant cousin; the downy woodpecker. Hairy woodpeckers, as ...

Well, I finally did it. I got a decent photo of a hairy woodpecker. For some reason, I have always had bad luck when it comes to this particular species. So, after decades of that nonsense, I recently ...

I scattered a few peanuts on the picnic table on our deck, and it did not take long before half a dozen species were lining up for a freebie. One of those species was a hairy woodpecker, a favorite of ...

A woodpecker frequently visits our feeder, alighting on the wooden supporting post and hopping up the post to the suet. Its medium size and striking markings — black wings spotted with white, a large ...

Two species of woodpeckers come into their own in winter. The dramatic black and white feathers of downy and hairy woodpeckers add contrast to even the drabbest day. No matter what the weather, these ...

My first real bird guide book was a paperback copy of Roger Tory Peterson’s “A field Guide to Birds of the Eastern United States” that I got when I was in high school. The only other identification ...

The hairy woodpecker is not abundant in our area, but it is a dependable, stay-at-home, easy to find species year-around. The downy woodpecker, a smaller but very similar species, is more frequent and ...

A hairy (left) and a downy (right) woodpecker. Source: Indiana Ivy/ Fair use If self-deception, also known as the Dunning-Kruger effect in psychology, is bad enough, then discovering that you’ve ...

June is upon us, and we are all set to celebrate Father’s Day this weekend. If we have any luck at all, the weather will be cooperative, but the pattern has been pretty dismal so far; 12 consecutive ...

Lately, I've been keeping company with a couple of downy woodpeckers. These are appealing characters, tough enough to survive brutal winter weather, yet soft and delicate in appearance. The softness ...