It was toward the end of my walk home yesterday that I heard this little guy and stopped to get some close-ups. This juvenile downy woodpecker (note the red on its crown) was pecking away on what appeared to be a sapling, or just a very small tree. I was surprised by that, but there must have been something inside it was trying to get at!
Look at the red on its chest- is that coloring normal? I didn't see any mention of it in my guidebooks. I thought it just bumped into something messy like fruit on a tree.
Note the black bars on the outer tail feathers. This is one of the ways to distinguish a Downy Woodpecker from a Hairy Woodpecker, yet apparently some Hairy Woodpeckers do show this. In which case the Downy's smaller size would be the giveaway.
I saw a sad sight today during my lunchtime jog—a dead grackle. Or was it a starling? I'll get to that in a minute. I was making my way down to the trail along the Charles River when I saw what I thought was an injured bird in the middle of the road. It was just sitting there and I figured it was just stunned or maybe had an injured wing. The bird probably didn't have much of a chance, but the least I could move it out of the road. As I got closer to the bird I saw it had its mouth open and then I realized the gruesome truth—it was dead and was frozen in that position. I just got shivers thinking about it. The poor thing. Anyway, so it got me to thinking 'What is the difference between grackles and starlings?' I use the two interchangeably and haven't really made an effort to sort it out. Until now. I like to use All About Birds from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as an online resource. The site is comprehensive and easy to use. (I also really like the 'Cool ...
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