![]() Or is it a Hairy?” Their plumage is virtually identical. Possibly one of the most common expressions in North American birding is “Oh, there’s a Downy Woodpecker…. I chose to write about the Hairy and Downy Woodpeckers together not just because they cover so much common territory, but because they are very similar in looks-so much so that they are often quite difficult to tell apart. (You might be surprised at what that other species is. Only one other North American bird matches the year-round blanket coverage of the Hairy and the Downy. These birds are non-migrating, stay-at-home species that can be found virtually anywhere in Canada and the United States any time of the year. From Alaska to Newfoundland, Florida to the Baja Peninsula, and all points in between, the range map for each of these woodpeckers is solid violet. Purple marks territory where you can expect to find the bird all year long.įor the Hairy Woodpecker and the Downy Woodpecker the range maps are boring affairs, unless you’re partial to the color purple. ![]() ![]() Yellow indicates where you’ll find the bird during the spring and fall migration. In one guide that I use, orange is for the bird’s summer range, blue for its wintering territory. A typical field guide has multicolored range maps, with each color indicating the geographic range of each species during each season. For each species the range map shows where in the world you can expect to find that bird, and during what time of the year. ![]() Every birding field guide that I know of has what are called range maps. ![]()
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