• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Is this the SAME Hairy Woopecker?? (1 Viewer)

Fraulein ash

Woodpecker stalker
I'm not sure if this thread is in the right place since I'm not actually questioning if he is a Hairy Woodpecker or not, I'm just questioning if it is the SAME Hairy in both photos.


This young Hairy has been visiting our feeders for a while now and he always comes alone. I feel like he's probably a juvenile because his spot on his head is more rust colored and not red like I've seen in photos of adult male Hairy's? He also looks kind of thin, very disheveled and rough, so I thought maybe his adult plumage hadn't grown in yet. I wonder where his parents or siblings are... did they die? Or is he coming alone because this is his new established territory of his own?


Anyways! This morning he came... only his rust colored head was now RED?? How can that be?? I figured it would take more than 3 days for a rust colored spot to turn red, surely? I don't know enough about birds to know if their feathers can actually change colors or if the bird has to actually grow new feathers of a different color.


Here are my two best photos that show the top of his head... the red was taken this morning and the rust was taken 3 days ago. Is this the same bird, or do I have TWO Hairy friends??
 

Attachments

  • rsz_hairyred.jpg
    rsz_hairyred.jpg
    307.9 KB · Views: 132
  • rsz_hairyrust.jpg
    rsz_hairyrust.jpg
    263.9 KB · Views: 146
You guys seem sure, so that's good enough for me! AWESOME! I have two Hairy's!

Do you think the adult could be the juveniles parent?? I wonder where mom is, because I've been seeing Junior for months now, and I've never seen any others (until now!)

I tried looking up info on plumage for these guys and couldn't find anything about how long it takes them to go from Juvenile to adult... but logic told me it was more than 3 days.


Can anyone tell me if the rust colored head *will* definitely turn red eventually? I have seen photos of baby Hairy's and in the photos their feathers are already red, so what's up with the rust?
 
I was just passing some idle time looking at the threads. I know nothing about American birds. So this is just a comment from looking at the pictures, though I also looked it up on Handbook of Birds of the World (HBW) online.

It's true that HBW says the patch can be red or orange, and there seems to be a huge amount of subspecies variation. And they must definitely be two different birds.

But: isn't the orange patch on the one bird in a completely different place from the red patch on the other bird? The red patch is on the nape of the head behind the eyebrows where HBW says and illustrates that it should be on a male, but the orange patch on the original bird is right at the front of the head. No-one seems to have mentioned this. It just looks to me like the orange and red are not the same part of the bird. In fact, I wondered if the orange couldn't just be tree dust, except the OP said it had been orange for a long time.

Incidentally, HBW seems to say that females don't have the colouration at the nape, just black and white - and the only female illustrated, Eastern Hairy Woodpecker, which I guess is what you get in NY, definitely doesn't show any coloured nape patch at all. Also, HBW says juveniles always have some streaking on the white chest, which the orange bird doesn't have.

I wonder if the orange bird isn't just an adult female with tree dust or sap, or just some slight discolouration at the front of the face, nothing to do with a distinctive plumage, because the orange is in the wrong place to be the red cap. And the red bird is an adult male. And there isn't an juvenile, so there's no particular problem about that bird showing up alone over a significant period.

Just pointing this out for interest's sake. Ignore me if I'm talking nonsense.
 
Hi MacNara,
Looking at my Sibley, the juvenile has a red crown (front of head), could be orange as per HBW, but the adult doesn't. The adult female has the red patch of the other bird at the rear of the head. The adult male has no red at all.

Edit: The immature could be nearly adult male. The red crown faded to orange and a lack of spotting on the breast?
 
Last edited:
Hi MacNara,
Looking at my Sibley, the juvenile has a red crown (front of head), could be orange as per HBW, but the adult doesn't. The adult female has the red patch of the other bird at the rear of the head. The adult male has no red at all.

Edit: The immature could be nearly adult male. The red crown faded to orange and a lack of spotting on the breast?

Hi Andy, are you sure you're reading that right? It's the male that has the red patch in every source I've seen. And the female doesn't have any patch. And the juvenile does or doesn't depending on the photo - male / female presumably. I don't have Sibley, just HBW and BF.

Have a look at BF Opus and then the linked Gallery photos. But one interesting thing I spotted on a closer look at the gallery is that some photos show an orange tuft above the bill and in the right spot for the OP's bird. Here's another one with an orange nose tuft from New Jersey and therefore presumably the same ssp as the OP's bird from NY. As far as I can seen HBW doesn't mention or illustrate this orange tuft. Although note also that the bird with the red patch posted by the OP doesn't have this tuft.

Anyway I think this supports my idea that this is just a female.
 
I was just passing some idle time looking at the threads. I know nothing about American birds. So this is just a comment from looking at the pictures, though I also looked it up on Handbook of Birds of the World (HBW) online.

It's true that HBW says the patch can be red or orange, and there seems to be a huge amount of subspecies variation. And they must definitely be two different birds.

But: isn't the orange patch on the one bird in a completely different place from the red patch on the other bird? The red patch is on the nape of the head behind the eyebrows where HBW says and illustrates that it should be on a male, but the orange patch on the original bird is right at the front of the head. No-one seems to have mentioned this. It just looks to me like the orange and red are not the same part of the bird. In fact, I wondered if the orange couldn't just be tree dust, except the OP said it had been orange for a long time.

Incidentally, HBW seems to say that females don't have the colouration at the nape, just black and white - and the only female illustrated, Eastern Hairy Woodpecker, which I guess is what you get in NY, definitely doesn't show any coloured nape patch at all. Also, HBW says juveniles always have some streaking on the white chest, which the orange bird doesn't have.

I wonder if the orange bird isn't just an adult female with tree dust or sap, or just some slight discolouration at the front of the face, nothing to do with a distinctive plumage, because the orange is in the wrong place to be the red cap. And the red bird is an adult male. And there isn't an juvenile, so there's no particular problem about that bird showing up alone over a significant period.

Just pointing this out for interest's sake. Ignore me if I'm talking nonsense.

Yes, I definitely noticed this! But as I really don't know much about how plumage grows in, I wasn't sure if the color grew in at different places when the bird molted as he aged.


So rusty cap birdy *isn't* a juvie?? WOW! Ok, my bad. He just looks so rough and thin, plus that strange orange color.

When I was looking at other photos of Hairy's for comparison, I hardly ever saw another photo of a Hairy with the red coloring in the same location on the birds head. It was more common in Downy's, but this is definitely a Hairy, I see dozens of Downy's all day long and I can spot the size difference in body and bill, easily. Since I've been seeing this bird for months, I can't imagine it isn't permanent coloring. If it *was* a stain, it would have to be a stain that would withstand *lots* of rainstorms.
 

So rusty cap birdy *isn't* a juvie?? WOW! Ok, my bad. He just looks so rough and thin, plus that strange orange color.


The rusty cap bird is a juvenile; the rusty/orange/red, sometimes even yellow, on the cap indicates this. The other is an adult male. Adult females have no red.
 
The rusty cap bird is a juvenile; the rusty/orange/red, sometimes even yellow, on the cap indicates this. The other is an adult male. Adult females have no red.

Hi again Ms Ash: looking around further photos on the internet, it seems that the juvenile of this species, or at least some ssp, have an orange blob in the position of your original bird. So it is a juvenile - though I don't know how old you can get and still be a juvenile in this bird (since you say it's been by itself for quite a while).

But I think my oringinal observation holds, in the sense that it isn't this orange blob that gradually turns red, but that this disappears and on the male, at least, a red blob appears significantly further back. I don't know whether both sexes have this orange blob on the forecrown; perhaps rkj can tell us.

Apologies for coming into your thread without having any experience of the birds in question, but simply the quite different locations of the orange and red spots intrigued me.

For me, the surprise is that Handbook of Birds of the World doesn't have more detail on what I presume is a common species where you are. And also, although it's obvious on a lot of internet photos, there is an orange tuft just above the nose of adult birds in several ssp if not in all which is not mentioned in HBW and other things I looked at.

Anyway, like you, I find woodpeckers rather neat and hope lots more come to your garden or park.
 
Hi Andy, are you sure you're reading that right? It's the male that has the red patch in every source I've seen. And the female doesn't have any patch. And the juvenile does or doesn't depending on the photo - male / female presumably. I don't have Sibley, just HBW and BF.

Have a look at BF Opus and then the linked Gallery photos. But one interesting thing I spotted on a closer look at the gallery is that some photos show an orange tuft above the bill and in the right spot for the OP's bird. Here's another one with an orange nose tuft from New Jersey and therefore presumably the same ssp as the OP's bird from NY. As far as I can seen HBW doesn't mention or illustrate this orange tuft. Although note also that the bird with the red patch posted by the OP doesn't have this tuft.

Anyway I think this supports my idea that this is just a female.

Of course, you are absolutely correct. I don't know what happened when I read it. It is usually the male that is more colourful, as we all know. (I blame this never ending heat wave, LOL) How are you holding up in an even hotter Japan?
 
Of course, you are absolutely correct. I don't know what happened when I read it. It is usually the male that is more colourful, as we all know. (I blame this never ending heat wave, LOL) How are you holding up in an even hotter Japan?

Not very well, sometimes, Andy. It's not so much the days that reach 35ºC, it's the days that don't get below 25ºC at all. Last year we had a record number for our city of days that didn't get below 25ºC - twenty days - which beat the old record of thirteen by quite a stretch. This year we are already at fifteen, and we haven't even got into August, the first half of which is the hottest period normally. Days above 35ºC, thirteen in July; days above 32ºC 24 in July.

It's been good for my marriage, however. Instead of my wife waking up at 2AM and insisting the air conditioner is turned off, she wakes up at 2AM and says it's not strong enough.
 
Not very well, sometimes, Andy. It's not so much the days that reach 35ºC, it's the days that don't get below 25ºC at all. Last year we had a record number for our city of days that didn't get below 25ºC - twenty days - which beat the old record of thirteen by quite a stretch. This year we are already at fifteen, and we haven't even got into August, the first half of which is the hottest period normally. Days above 35ºC, thirteen in July; days above 32ºC 24 in July.

It's been good for my marriage, however. Instead of my wife waking up at 2AM and insisting the air conditioner is turned off, she wakes up at 2AM and says it's not strong enough.

Its the same here. Today in Kitzingen, ( a couple of hours south) the predicted temperature will reach 39°C. A lack of rain is affecting the crops badly, but the worst is the temperature does not drop significantly at night either. We have seen Germany as being hotter than northern Spain, with only Turkey, Greece and Southern Spain hotter in Europe! No change in sight until possibly late August.

PS sorry for going off topic.
 
PS sorry for going off topic.

Well, maybe Fraulein Ash will be interested in weather reports from Germany!

Here, in my part of Japan (Nara), we have broken, or are on course to break various records, some only set last year. Our late June had record hot days for the month, which carried on into July, but were broken by a rainstorm which was the second-highest recorded amount of rain to fall here in 24 hours (195.5 mm) - not quite meeting the record which was set - wait for it - last October (197.5mm). But actually this rainfall was not too bad in our area - further west the fall was higher, and there were a lot of landslides and people died.

But then the heat got back on track.

A couple of days ago, we had an early typhoon which is the first ever typhoon to head for the east and hit mainland Japan (around Tokyo), but then turn west (and hit Osaka after Tokyo) and then go south (with Kyushu island as the last destination in Japan). Normally, typhoons start south of Japan in the Pacific, then head north and when they hit the southern islands of Japan, they either go west into the continent (Taiwan, Vietnam, China) or track east (and sometimes eventually north) across Japan.

This typhoon toppled a few trees at my local birding patch, and reduced the temperature for a couple of days, but today is 35ºC max / 25ºC min again.

I have no idea how old you are Andy, but I attach this cartoon anyway. I remember being with my (then and now) best mate in a harbour somewhere in Devon and thinking the bitter ale was a bit cold compared to the surrounding air.
 

Attachments

  • 1976 Mattt.jpg
    1976 Mattt.jpg
    92.4 KB · Views: 13
Ha ha ha, I was 16 then.

We don't get typhoons here but storm Carilla(sp) damaged a lot of trees and the woods around here (Paderborn) were closed to the public for about 8 weeks. They still haven't finished with removing the dangerously leaning ones.
 
Warning! This thread is more than 6 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top