The more you learn about birds, the more amazing they are. Check out this video of a female downy woodpecker foraging on the redbud tree just off our back deck. Downy woodpeckers are the smallest woodpecker species in North America, but they are just as incredible as their bigger cousins. I slowed the video down in the middle so you can see her extracting a nice, juicy white grub. Notice how she drills down in exactly the right spot. How did she find it? How does a woodpecker know where to peck?!
Woodpeckers have various techniques for finding prey depending on the circumstances. They find a promising tree or branch, fly to the bottom and start working their way upward as she is doing here. In some cases they can actually hear the insect moving inside the tree. They can also see entrance holes. On trees with shaggier bark, they sometimes just chip off loose pieces and see what’s underneath, but that doesn’t apply to the smooth bark of this redbud. Notice how she taps in different places, then zeroes in on one spot. She is listening and feeling as she taps - hollow spots sound and feel different. She knows something had to make that spot hollow and once she finds it, she braces her stiff tail against the branch, hammers away, and bingo, there’s the worm!