Downy vs Hairy Woodpecker: The Bill-Length Test

Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers are near-copies of each other: black and white, with a white stripe down the middle of the back, white-spotted black wings, and a small red patch on the back of the head in males. Both live across most of the US, and both come to suet feeders. The quickest way to tell them apart is the bill.

A Downy has a short, stubby bill, about a third as long as its head or less. A Hairy has a long, strong, chisel-like bill, roughly as long as its head from front to back. Once your eye learns that ratio, most birds sort themselves out in a second or two.

Downy vs Hairy Woodpecker at a glance

The bill-length test, step by step

1. Find the base of the bill, where it meets the feathers of the face.
2. Judge the length of the head from that point to the back of the head.
3. Compare the two. If the bill is about a third of the head length or less, it is a Downy. If the bill is close to the full head length, it is a Hairy.

The test is easiest with the bird in profile. Seen head-on or from behind, the bill looks shorter than it is, and both species can seem short-billed. Wait for the bird to turn its head, or take a photo and check it afterward; the guide on how to identify a bird from a photo has tips for getting a useful shot.

Size, shape and tail feathers

Size is harder to judge than you might think when one bird is alone on a feeder. Compare it with something fixed, like the suet cage or the feeder perch: a Hairy's body and tail stretch well past the edge of a typical suet cage, while a Downy fits on it more neatly. When both species visit at the same time, the difference is obvious, and the Hairy looks surprisingly big.

Shape helps as well. Downies look small-headed and compact. Hairies look longer-bodied and bigger-headed, with a more serious, angular profile.

The outer tail feathers are a useful backup clue when the bird braces against a trunk with its tail spread. On most Downies, the white outer tail feathers carry a few black bars or spots. On most Hairies they are clean white. The marks are small and not always easy to see, so use them alongside the bill rather than on their own.

Calls and drumming

You will often hear these woodpeckers before you see them.

• Downy: a soft, flat "pik," and a whinnying rattle that runs down the scale.
• Hairy: a sharper, louder "peek!" and a rattle that stays on one pitch, without the Downy's falling whinny.

Both species drum on dead limbs, utility poles and sometimes metal gutters, mostly in late winter and spring, to claim a territory and attract a mate. Drumming is a signal, not feeding, and it is loud on purpose. Telling the two apart by drumming alone is difficult, so rely on the calls and the bill.

Behavior and habitat clues

Across most of the US, the Downy is the more common of the two at backyard feeders. It is at home in suburbs, parks and small yards, and its light weight lets it work places bigger woodpeckers cannot reach: thin twigs, weed stems, and the round galls on goldenrod stalks, which it pecks open in winter for the larvae inside.

Hairies need more trees. They are most at home in mature woods and in yards with big trees nearby, spend more time on trunks and large limbs, and tend to be warier at feeders. Both species eat insects from bark and come to suet, peanuts and black oil sunflower seed, and Downies occasionally sip from hummingbird and oriole feeders. For foods and feeders that bring both in, see how to attract woodpeckers to your yard and what birds eat suet.

Both species mostly stay put all year, so the pair working your suet in January may well nest nearby in spring. They dig their own nest holes in dead or decaying wood, which is why leaving a dead limb standing, where it is safe to do so, helps them more than hanging a nest box.

Regional variation and other look-alikes

Both species vary a little across the country. In parts of the West, both can show fewer white spots on the wings, and in the Pacific Northwest both can look dingier underneath, with a gray-brown wash instead of clean white. The bill test works everywhere.

A few other birds are sometimes mistaken for these two:

• Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (the East, wintering mainly in the South): a long white stripe on the folded wing, a red forehead, and a mottled back instead of a clean white stripe.
• Ladder-backed and Nuttall's Woodpeckers (the Southwest and California): black-and-white bars across the back like the rungs of a ladder, not a single white stripe.
• Red-bellied Woodpecker (mainly the East): bigger, with a barred zebra-pattern back and red on the head; the red belly is only a faint wash. See red-bellied woodpecker identification.

In a backyard anywhere in the lower 48, a black-and-white woodpecker with a clean, unbarred white stripe down the middle of its back is almost certainly a Downy or a Hairy.

Males, females and young birds

In both species, adult males have a small red patch on the back of the head and adult females have none. The red patch tells you the sex, not the species, so check the bill first and the head second.

In summer, young birds just out of the nest can show red, orange or pinkish feathers on the top of the head rather than the back, which can be confusing. The red-patch rule works best on adults; for more on sexing woodpeckers, see woodpecker male vs female.

Written by the Backyard Birdcam team with AI assistance. Found something we got wrong? Email shop@smarternewsnow.com and we will fix it. How we write our guides.