Only their hairdresser knows for sure! 🙂

I combined two photographs into one picture of these two birds. As you can see, they look very, very similar. However, in the wild it is not too difficult to correctly identify these two birds.

1. A Hairy Woodpecker is about 1/3 larger than a Downy
2. The bill of a Hairy is both broader and longer (a Downy’s is sharper)
3. The outside tail feathers of a Hairy are pure white. A Downy’s will have gray or black spots.

Read more about keeping these two birds straight at BirdWatching.Com.

• View this project’s Flickr photo stream. (click upon image to view at full size)

Both Birds (Hairy on the right)

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Hairy Woodpecker

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Downy Woodpecker

There is a decent Winter snowstorm in progress. This provides a challenge for a person’s photography skills. Light is lower, and snowflakes makes the use of autofocus difficult. Thankfully I was able to find plenty of birds of which to take a picture, but the conditions which could only be described as “yeech” made coming up with an interesting photo a challenge. I ultimately decided to photograph this White Breasted Nuthatch as the contrast of his eye against the white head gave me something to work with in terms of composing a photo. The other birds I could find during this storm had black eyes against dark heads in the middle of low light conditions. Without a bird’s eye in a photograph, the end result suffers.

One other reason this White Breasted Nuthatch was a good photo subject, although during the morning these birds flit around quickly and frequently, I’ve noticed later in the afternoon nuthatches will often stand motionless for significant periods of time. This inaction lessens the photo challenge! Finally, I have been wanting to photograph a nuthatch at this pine tree hole for some time, but never was presented the opportunity.

• View this project’s Flickr photo stream. (click upon image to view at full size)

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Down the Hole!