A medium-sized woodpecker with a long bill. Male has red on the back of the head. "Eastern" Hairy Woodpecker has extensive white spotting on the wings.
Medium-sized woodpecker with a white patch down its back. Female lacks male's red on the head. "Rocky Mts." Hairy Woodpecker, found across much of the western U.S. (and into British Columbia), has mostly black wings.
Hollows out a nest in a live or dead tree. Both males and females feed young soft-bodied insects.
Typically hitches up tree trunks or along large branches, leaning back against stiff tail feathers and springing upward with both feet at once.
"Pacific" Hairy Woodpecker is darker than "Rocky Mts." and "Eastern" groups, with light brownish underparts and mostly black wings.
Juvenile male (in all subspecies groups) has a red crown patch.
"Costa Rican" Hairy Woodpecker from the highlands of eastern Costa Rica and western Panama has cinnamon underparts.
In flight, "Eastern" Hairy Woodpecker has extensive white spotting on the black upperwings.
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A medium-sized woodpecker with a fairly square head, a long, straight, chisel-like bill, and stiff, long tail feathers to lean against on tree trunks. The bill is nearly the same length as the head.
About a third again larger than a Downy Woodpecker
robin-sizedHairy Woodpeckers vary a great deal over their broad range. Northern birds tend to be larger than southern. East of the Rockies they are white below with extensively spotted wings while western birds have much less spotting in the wings and narrower facial stripes. Birds in the Pacific Northwest are brown and black (rather than white and black); they look coffee-stained. Interestingly, Downy Woodpeckers show these same regional patterns of variation.
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