I have just seen two different woodpeckers with red tufts at the feeder within a minute

[conuly]

and my bird identification skills are still very shaky but I can now absolutely confirm that I definitely have a pair of downy woodpeckers and at least one red-bellied woodpecker coming to my feeder.

Except the latter hardly ever shows up, which has been causing me no end of confusion. I was worried I had made a mistake in naming these birds.

Comments

[low_delta]

my bird identification skills are still very shaky

Fortunately, woodpeckers are very distinctive from each other - except the downy and hairy woodpeckers. They both look almost exactly alike, but the downy is much smaller than any other woodpecker.

I always enjoy seeing them!

[adafrog]

Cool.

[hudebnik]

Those are both quite plausible in the NYC area, and easily told apart (except, as low_delta says, that "downy' might actually be the larger "hairy"). The other common woodpeckers around here are the red-shafted flicker and yellow-bellied sapsucker, which have only faint hints of color (on either belly or head). Followed by the much larger and crestier pileated.

The sapsucker is easiest to identify after it's gone, by its neat, rectangular-grid pattern of holes in a single tree.

Pretty cool having them in your yard!

[frandroid]

cute birbs!