Appearance
12-14" (30-35 cm). When in its undulating flight, the Flicker shows a conspicuous white rump. This and the barred brown back mark are the major identifying marks from a distance. Close up, it shows a black patch across the chest. Two different-looking forms occur: "Yellow-shafted" Flicker (found in the east and north) and "Red-shafted" Flicker (west). The "Yellow-shafted" Flicker is the type found around Cedar Bog. Overhead, it flashes golden yellow under the wings and tail. It has a red crescent on its nape and the male has a black mustache.
Food
Probably eats ants more frequently than any other North American bird. Also feeds on beetles, termites, caterpillars, and other insects. Eats many fruits and berries, especially in fall and winter, and eats seeds and nuts at times. The Flicker finds its food by hopping on the ground, climbing tree trunks and limbs and occasionally flying out to catch insects in the air. | 
Male Flicker, can see moustache |
Habits and Breeding
With its wide range, from Alaska to Nicaragua, the flicker can be found in almost any habitat with trees; including open forests, woodlots, groves, towns and semi-open country. Tends to avoid dense unbroken forest, requiring some open ground for foraging.
Males will defend their nesting territory with calling, drumming, and many aggressive displays, including swinging head back and forth, flicking wings open and spreading tail to show off the bright underside. Courtship displays are mostly similar to these activities.
The nest is a cavity in a tree or post, usually in dead wood with pine, cottonwood, and willow being favored trees. The cavity is made by both sexes, usually 6-20' above ground but sometimes much higher (to 100' or more). The cavity is lined only with wood chips.
The 5-8, sometimes 3-12 white eggs are incubated by both parents (with the male incubating at night and part of day) for 11-16 days. Both parents feed the young by regurgitation. Young leave nest about 4 weeks after hatching and will follow their parents to good foraging sites.
Peterson Online.
Appearance
8-10 inches--robin-sized. Black and white barring on back, underbelly white with a very faint red patch. Nape of neck red witgh male having a red crown.
Food
Eats large numbers of woodboring beetles, grasshoppers, ants and other insects as well as acorns, beechnuts, and wild fruits. Will store food for winter eating in its southern range where it does not migrate.
Habits and Breeding
A southern species that is expanding into the north. Lives in pine and deciduous forests, groves, orchards, farmland and suburbs. Noisy and fairly aggressive. Often nests in a dead tree at the edge of a woodland, using the same hole year after year. 4-5 white eggs are incubated by both parents for 14 days. | 
Red-bellied Woodpecker |
Birds of North America, National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds: Eastern Region, Reader's Digest North American Wildlife and Audubon Handbook: Eastern Birds.
Appearance
8 1/2 - 9 1/2" (21-24 cm). A black-backed woodpecker with a head that is entirely red. The rump is white. Large, square white patches on the wing make the lower back look white when the bird is on a tree.
Food
Perhaps the most omnivorous of woodpeckers, its diet includes a wide variety of insects, as well as spiders, earthworms, nuts, seeds, berries, wild and cultivated fruit and sometimes small rodents. Occassionally they will even eat the eggs and nestlings of other birds. Also sometimes eats bark. Opportunistic. Flies out from a perch to catch insects in the air or on ground; climbs tree trunks and major limbs; hops on ground. Gathers acorns, beechnuts, and other nuts in fall, storing them in holes and crevices, then feeding on them during the winter.
Habits and Breeding
Once a very common bird in eastern North America, the Red-headed Woodpecker is now uncommon and local in many regions. A short-distance migrant not known to occur south of United States. | 
Red-Headed Woodpecker |
Avoids unbroken forest, favoring open country or at least clearings in the woods. Forest edges, orchards, open pine woods, groves of tall trees in open country are likely habitats. Winter habitats are influenced by the source of food in the fall.
The male establishes territory and advertises there with calling, drumming. Displays involve bowing head, spreading wings. In resident birds, male's winter territory may become breeding territory. The male's winter roosting cavity may be used for the nest or a new cavity may be created (mostly by the male). This cavity is in a bare dead tree or limb, anywhere from a few feet above ground to 65' or higher. No nest material other than wood chips in placed in the bottom of the cavity.
The 4-5, sometimes 3-7, white eggs are incubated by both sexes (with male incubating at night) for 12-13 days. The young are fed by both parents, and leave the nest at about 27-31 days. 1 or 2 broods may be had each year. Sometimes pairs may start on a second nesting attempt while still feeding fledglings from the first. This second brood may be raised in the same nest but more often will be in a new cavity.
Peterson Online
Appearance
8 ½ inches. Mottled(or barred) off-white and black with white stripes on the head and neck. Male has a red crown and throat where the female has only a red crown. Dull yellow on chest area. There is a white wing stripe running down the shoulder part of the wing and is visible even when the wing is folded.
Food
Bore holes into the sap-bearing cambium of the tree and then sucks up the sap with a brush-like tounge. They will return again and again to the same tree and will also eat insects attracted to the sap, which are a large part of their diet. However, these holes damage trees and allow entry to harmful fungi and tree diseases.
Habits and Breeding
Prefers young forests, either deciduous or mixed, with clearings. The 4-7 white eggs are laid in an excavated cavity in a dead or dying tree. Both parents incubate for 14 days. | 
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker |
Birds of North America and National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds: Eastern Region
Appearance
The hairy woodpecker looks like an overgrown downy woodpecker with a larger, heavier bill. It has a white breast and back, black-and-white-striped head, black wings spotted with white, clear white outer tail feathers, and black inner tail feathers. The male hairy woodpecker is distinguished from the female by a red patch on the back of its head.
Food
As expert climbers, hairy woodpeckers are comfortable on the trunks and undersides of tree branches searching for insect larvae. Other invertebrate foods include ants, spiders, millipedes, and beetles. They also eat some wild fruits such as blackberries and raspberries, as well as wild nuts - acorns, hazelnuts, and beechnuts. Sunflower seeds, meat scraps, peanut butter, cheese, cracked walnuts and pecans, apples, and bananas may also attract them to feeders. But most of their food consists of insects. | 
Hairy Woodpecker |
Some researchers think that hairy woodpeckers can hear wood-boring insects crunching on wood. Others theorize that when hairy woodpeckers strike trees and hold their bills in the bark, they can feel the vibrations and thus locate the insects.
Habits and Breeding
Hairy woodpeckers are resident birds throughout their range, which means they do not migrate. They live primarily in mature forests where they feed on the larvae of wood-boring insects, but they may move into sheltered towns in the winter and come to feeders, especially for suet.
The male usually chooses a nest site and excavates the cavity, although the female helps. Dead and dying branches on live trees are preferred, but sometimes the tops of dead trees are used. The cavity is five to 40 feet from the ground and 10 to 15 inches deep, with an entrance hole 1 3/4 to 2 inches in diameter and the bottom has a soft bed of wood chips. The female lays three to six white eggs, which are incubated by both parents, the male again doing more of the work but alternating with the female during the day and incubating throughout the night. After an 11- to 12-day incubation period, their young hatch and then remain in the nest for 28 to 30 days. Because the parents continue to care for them for as long as six weeks after fledging, Hairy woodpeckers have only one brood a year.
Peterson Online.
Appearance
6 inches average length.Similar to the Hairy Woodpecker in coloration but smaller and with a shorter bill.
Food
Wood boring insects found in trees as well as suet and other food in feeders.
Habits and Breeding
Smallest and "tamest" of eastern woodpeckers, it comes easily to feeders and often mixes with other birds in flocks for winter and migration. More of a forest dweller than the Hairy Woodpecker.
The 4-5 white eggs are laid in a hole that the woodpeckers make in a dead tree. They take about 12 days to hatch and are incubated by both the parents.
National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Birds: Eastern Region, Reader's Digest North American Wildlife, Birds of North America. |  Female Downy Woodpecker
 Male Downy Woodpecker |
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