Here is a close up of an adult male Downy Woodpecker. The active little Downy Woodpecker is a familiar sight at backyard feeders and in parks and woodlots, where it joins flocks of chickadees and nuthatches, barely outsizing them. The Downy is the smallest woodpecker in North America and their breeding habitat is usally forested areas mainly deciduous which makes Caledon, Ontario a good home for them. They nest in a tree cavity excavated by the nesting pair in a dead tree or limb. Downy Woodpeckers forage on trees, picking the bark surface in summer and digging deeper in winter. They mainly eat insects, also seeds and berries. In winter, especially, Downy Woodpeckers can often be found in treed suburban backyards and will feed on suet at birdfeeders.

Photo was taken with my new ultra zoom lens (50-500mm) and cleaned up a little in photoshop, click on the image above for a larger photo.

This small little woodpecker has been in my backyard for quite a while but I haven’t been able to get a good picture of him until now. I am not entirely sure but I think it is either a female Downy Woodpecker or a female Hairy Woodpecker, if you know please let me know. I have seen these little guys all over Caledon and if it wasn’t for the wood pecking you might easily mistake it for chickadee or some other small little bird. Picture was taken with my Olympus 70-300mm zoom lens and was then cleaned up and enhanced with the program Photomatix. Below is a small Animated GIF I made of it pecking at the white birch tree.

I found this little guy a red headed woodpecker inside the Palgrave Conservation area. Unfortunately it had started to snow at the time but I was determined to get a picture of him so once I spotted him I slowly stalked him into the deep woods and with my brand new zoom lens (Olympus 70-300mm) for my SLR I caught these photos of him. Due to the low lighting and snow falling I adjusted the images in Photoshop and Photomatix to bring out the colour some more and smooth it out. Click on the photos to open larger images.