Meet the Downy Woodpecker. The smallest woodpecker in North America. Like all woodpeckers who can be found in trees, woody bushes, or even at the backyard bird feeder.

This small woodpecker has a nice disposition, well as far as wild birds go! Not afraid of humans or does not appear to be! They will walk around the tree or what not as if playing hide – and – go- seek with you. I first heard this little one. The tapping has became familiar due to having several of these show up at the house, even their call is getting familiar. However this one was not at the house, but in this grove of fast growing brush trees near a pond I like to walk to.

This downy woodpecker new I was around. As quiet as we think we are, we are not quiet at all! Wildlife has a heighten sense of their surroundings, and what disturbs these surroundings. Lets face it if these wild animals did not have this, would they really eat every day? Or live very long?

After I snapped off several shots you see here. The little one went further in to this grove of living twigs. A cold morning however the ponds water had receded enough for me to get to the other side of this grove being careful not to slip and fall on the icy mud. My curiosity just got the best of me and I wanted to see what on earth had gotten this little ones attention! For being little woodpeckers the TAP TAP TAP sure is loud! Or it could be just quiet ?

I made my way around the grove of small trees to find this downy woodpecker had been hard at work. You can see what he had been working on. What I found interesting and tried to get in these still shots is the grub that has been found within this tree. You can see just a little white within the hole.

This shot above you can see a little bit more of the grub, who I am sure is trying to get away the best it can.

This shot is plan and clear to see what this Downy Woodpecker had worked so hard for! A grub which is plan to see! Now to get it all the way out!!

It took a lot of work to get this grub out of where it was living eating the nice inside of this tree. These grubs do a lot of damage to all kinds of trees! The woodpeckers holes to get them out was something I pondered. I thought perhaps it is like one of my dogs nose? He seams to smell the scent bugs give off, thus at first I thought my dog was just going nuts scratching at nothing. When in fact he was telling me there were ants coming into the house from that very spot in which he was scratching! These birds must have the same type of sense my dog has? Feeling the grubs within the tree trunk? Smelling the grub?? If you and I were hungry and we would eat grubs, well we might be good at getting them too….

You can see now that the grub is out of the tree how big these grubs can get!

Down the grub went! Yum Yum!

This all happened quicker then one might think? I left this downy woodpecker alone to enjoy something in his belly before having to find something else to eat, then something more!

Thank you for coming by to share this happening with me! Of course in photographs for a photo does tell a lot of words.