Knocking Around the Neighborhood
A male downey woodpecker, Picoides pubescens, the smallest and most common woodpecker in the United States, hunts for insects in a West Ketchum tree last week. These insect-loving birds are also frequent visitors in winter to Western birdfeeders, where they love to augment their diet with suet. One can hear them communicate periodically by their ?drumming? technique when they make loud banging noises on hollow trees or drainpipes to pinpoint their locations to their mates. Photo by Willy Cook
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