Downy, Honeylocust

The sound was like typist behind a closed door, in an office with thick carpets. It was subtle. In the clamor of the city, we must strive to hear the subtle sounds, and Green-Wood, wind-swept atop the moraine, is a fine place for the subtleties. This Downy Woodpecker (Picoides pubescens) was pecking away at Honeylocust (Gleditsia triacanthos) pods still hanging on the tree, looking for invertebrates that had burrowed into the pods. The seeds inside the pods reverberated to the tapping, making that pleasing, nostalgic sound.

The red patch on the nape tells us this is a male. Our smallest woodpecker, the Downy is the woodpecker species I see most outside of our greenswards, in the ‘hood itself.