Downy Woodpecker

June 25, 2009

Sometimes I don’t need to go into Forest Park at all, to see interesting birds…it so happened that this morning I decided to take along MLC2 (the weather seemed Not Rainy and Not Too Humid) and it was great, as I saw three DOWNY WOODPECKERS jumping around on a tree-trunk, on the Metro Rail bank, near a bridge that I was crossing…..I managed to get a FP (Foozly Photograph) of one:

downy woodpecker stlouis 240609

And then quickly set MLC2 to movie mode and got this quick burst before they all disappeared:

here’s what the Wiki entry says about these birds.

Why are they called “downy”, I wonder? Is it because of the down feathers they have, or does the word come from the Old English “down” which means hill, or is there a reference to their ability to quickly hop out of sight….”downy” has a meaning of “savvy, smart”?…. I don’t know…