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I just witnessed some unusual (to me, at least) downy woodpecker behavior at my suet log.

Usually these birds are solitary, serial feeders, and they will chase each other away from the log, allowing only one to feed at a time. But this morning, I noticed that a male and female arrived together, the male taking an upper perch, and the female staking out a perch below and to the right of the male.

 What surprised me was that the male started to feed the female. He would take a piece of suet cake, turnaround and down, and pass it to the female, similar to what I've heard about--but never witnessed--with Northern Cardinals. They repeated this behavior at least four times. Then they both flew off together in the same direction, with the male holding a large piece of suet cake in its mouth. I'm assuming that they have a nest with chicks somehwre nearby.

 

I can't explain the behavior except that maybe it's because she's the mother of his children and he loves her! AW! How sweet!

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Matthew 6:26

Even though I have seen plenty of Downy Woodpeckers, I am not sure of the coloring of a juvenile. Is it possible it was a juvenile and the parent was feeding it?. Sometimes the babies even look bigger than the parents. However, the coloring is usually not the same as the adult.

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* laughs like crow, soars like eagle with vision of hawk, haunts like loon & lulls like nuthatch ....tickle tickle, feather has most powerful medicine of all...makes you laugh *

I'm not an expert and can't say I've really paid much attention to the Downy behavior around here. I often confuse the Downy with similar species, and am not sure which tend to be territorial with their mates versus foraging together. I did look at the Cornell Birds of North America data service (that I have a subscription to) and the information indicates observations of pairs foraging together, as well as observations of parental care of juvenile birds including leading them to foraging sites.  Aion-Nara has a good point about this possibly being a parent/young.  If you see them together again, check for distinguishing marks of male/female or adult/young. 

I think Aion-Nara is right, the juvenile female looks very similar to the adult female. So what you were probably seeing is an adult feeding a juvenile.

Excellent theory! It never occurred to me that the one I assumed was an adult female was actually a juvenile.

The bird doing the feeding was definitely an adult male. I'll watch more closely and see if I can get a better ID.

Thanks!

 

 

Just today I watched a male Downy gathering food from the suet and then flying to a tree branch, feeding what looked like a female Downy but was actually a baby (puffed up when Dad got there with food).  The baby was larger than the father and they looked alike except the juvenile had much whiter and cleaner looking markings.

I saw it, too!  Hey, SeedMortgage - thanks for posting about your observations!  It's made me more alert to the behavior right here in my back yard!  In fact, I captured a photo of it this morning.  I didn't have time to grab the tripod, so I regret that the picture quality isn't better - but what can you do before you're quite awake in the mornng and scrambling with unsteady hands to push the camera to the bounds of digital zoom capacity.  :)

 

Great photo, geminiluna!

Although I haven't gotten a better look at the presumed-juvenile, I'm now 99% sure that Mary's theory is correct. While watching for the downys, I observed robins on the ground doing the exact same thing. An adult robin was hopping around the yard, grabbing insects and worms, and then hopping or fluttering to a juvenile robin to feed it. The juvenile was every bit as big as the parent, but its juvenile color (or lack thereof) was a definite.
 

Actually, I see downys feeding together on my suet pole all the time.  In fact, I've seen downys together with my red-bellied woodpecker, too.  And I know we had the debate over whether Big Daddy was a downy or a hoary, but he's been there with much smaller ones. 

 But my little feeding area seems to be rather .... strange.  I don't have very many scuffles break out.  Occassionally there's a mourning dove scuffle - a male chasing another male away from his lady - and the sparrows are usually in a tift about something or other.  And there's a chipmunk war going on, but even that is pretty localized.  I don't know if it's just that I throw enough food out that no one feels the need to be all territorial. 

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...somewhere in a peaceful mountain range, a rabbit plots to take over the world....

This is why late spring and early summer is so much fun for us backyard birders.  The babies are flying adding more activity to my garden.

I don't have any pictures of downys but here is one of a pileated mom feeding a juvenile that is almost as big as her. 

A Home for Wild Birds

Nifty pic!  I see pileateds all the time in the birch tree in the road by my house (literally IN the road - the road parts around it), but they don't deign to come to my feeders.  That's just for the little folks

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...somewhere in a peaceful mountain range, a rabbit plots to take over the world....

When juvenile birds leave the nest they are practically the same size as the adults. Some may not have their tail feathers yet, or look a bit scruffy, but there usually is no size difference between the adults and fledglings. This isn't true with grouse, shorebirds and some other families of birds, but it is true with song birds.

I usually see the same solitary thing too but yesterday I got to see an adult male and female at my suet cake feeding a juvenile. The juvenile was almost the same size as the parents. Both parents were feeding it. It was so cute watching them. 

Hi Jhuff8181,

Do you know what kind of suet is in the basket that the Pileateds are eating from?  I have a m/f pair of Pileateds that come a few times each spring to an old rotting tree stump and hack it to pieces to eat the ants and termites, but would love to encourage them to come more regularly!