Downy Woodpecker Essay Research Paper Downy Woodpecker free essay sample

Downy Woodpecker Essay, Research Paper Downy Woodpecker Habitat Downies take place in the United States and southern Canada. They have been recorded at lifts of up to 9,000 pess. The downies are non deep-forested birds, preferring deciduous trees. Open forests, river Grovess, groves, swamps, farming area, and suburban backyards are all favourite hangouts of the downy. Downies will besides nest in metropolis Parkss. About the lone topographic point you won # 8217 ; t happen them is comeuppances. The most attractive human home sites are woodlands broken up by logged spots in a waterside country. Downies besides enjoy unfastened shrubbery with Grovess of immature deciduous trees. Call ( s ) Like the hairy peckerwood, the downy beats a tattoo on a dry resonant tree subdivision. This drumming is the downy # 8217 ; s vocal, though they do do some vocal noises. They have several single-syllable call notes which include tchick, an aggressive societal note ; a tick and a tkhirrr, which are alarm notes. There is besides a location call, known as a # 8220 ; whinny # 8221 ; , made up of a twelve or more tchicks all strung together. Scientific Names The downy peckerwood # 8217 ; s scientific name is Picoides pubescens. There are besides six peculiar downies with six peculiar scientific names all from different parts of the United States and southern Canada which I have listed below: southern downy / Dryobates pubescensGairdner # 8217 ; s peckerwood / Gairdneri pubescensBatchelder # 8217 ; s peckerwood / Leucurus pubescensnorthern downy / Medianus pubescensNelson # 8217 ; s downy / Nelsoni pubescenswillow peckerwood / Turati pubescens The downy peckerwood is sometimes reffered to as # 8220 ; small downy. # 8221 ; Behavior Towards Humans The downy is unimpeachably the friendliest peckerwood. A bird lover in Wisconsin described downies at their feeding station: # 8220 ; The downies will endorse down to the suet container on the linden tree while I sit merely a few pess off on th e terrace. Even when I walk right up to them, most downies will non wing off, but will merely dart around the rear of the tree bole and peep about to see what I am making. If I press them, they will skip up the rear of the tree bole and so wing to a higher subdivision. Food Besides being friendly, downlike peckerwoods are our good friends for another ground. Most of the insects they eat are considered destructive to adult male # 8217 ; s groves and forest merchandises. About 75 % of their diet is made up of carnal affair gleaned from bark and crannies where insect larvae and eggs lie hidden. While standing on that alone tripod of two legs and and a tail, downies hitch up and down tree short pantss in hunt of a whole laundry list of insect plagues. With their particular chisel-like measures and horny, gluey linguas, downies are adept at tweaking out great Numberss of beetle chow, insect cocoons, or batches of insect eggs. They besides eat spiders, snails, emmets, beetles, weevils, a nd caterpillars, with other local insects included. 25 % of a downy # 8217 ; s diet are workss made up of the berries of toxicant Hedera helix, mountain ash, Virginia creeper, Juneberry, tupelo, and cornel. Downies besides eat the seeds of oaks, apples, hornbeams, sumac, hickory, and beach. Acorns, beachnuts, and walnuts are the peculiar favourites. Dr. John Confer and his pupils at Ithaca College have studied the downy peckerwood # 8217 ; s usage of goldenrod saddle sores as a beginning of nutrient. They discovered the downy # 8217 ; s small air hammer is merely the tool needed to bore a hole in the side of the one to two inch goldenrod saddle sore and pull out the bantam chow contained indoors. In fact, Confer # 8217 ; s surveies show that the goldenrod chow form an of import portion of the peckerwood # 8217 ; s winter diet. Plumage Tap, pat, pat! Tap, pat, pat! It is interesting how the downy peckerwood props itself with those stiff tail plumes while cleaving to the bark. Th e tail relieves the birds weight. This alone tripod allows the downy to skip up the tree bole with easiness, but it must endorse down in the same place, a more akward gesture. The downy peckerwood gets its name of downy because of its soft all right plumes. The downy, smallest of the peckerwood kin, is non even every bit large as a redbreast. It is merely about the size of the of a house sparrow at six inches tall. The downy can be separated from all other peckerwoods except the hairy by the wide, white strip down its dorsum. The downy and the hairy are frequently confused since their markers are rather similar. Both scope across the same district except the lower sou-west where the downy is less frequently seen. There are truly merely two ways to separate the downy and the hairy. ( 1 ) Expression at the measure of the two birds. The downy will hold a much shorter, stubbier measure. ( 2 ) The downy is about 2/3 the size of the hairy. That is another good hint to look for. The downy is most likely to be the 1 that you see at the feeder, since the haired keeps more to the forest than the downy. However, both will feed at feeders in the winter months, on suet particularly. The tail, wings, and back of both the downy and hairy peckerwoods have a black chromaticity intermingled with white musca volitanss. A black cap adorns each, below which there is a white band. A little vermilion spot appears on the lower dorsum of the caput. Another black band is below this. The downies have barred outer tail plumes non found on the hairies. Courtship Regardless of the lift, downy peckerwoods begin believing about nesting earlier than most birds and several months before they really nest. After passing the winter entirely, the downies seem to come to life in early February, traveling more rapidly and taking more involvement in their ain species. Their normal pat, pat, pat becomes a rather different unbroken trrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, enduring several seconds. The tapping is no longer merely an attempt to happen nutrient but a agency of pass oning to other downies that this is # 8220 ; my # 8221 ; district. It is besides the first effort to pull a mate. Both sexes membranophone. So early does this beating Begin that it is non unusual to hear it on sub-zero forenoons. Some bird watchers believe that downy peckerwoods retain the same mate every bit long as they live. In this instance, all the brace has to make in the spring is to regenerate their brace bonds. This fidelity, nevertheless, seems to be a consequence of an fond regard to the nesting site instead than between the birds. After the drumming has united the brace, the existent wooing begins with a funny dance or # 8220 ; weaving # 8221 ; action by both sexes. With their cervix stretched out and measure pointed in line with their caput and organic structure from side to side equilibrating on the tips of their tail. Their full organic structure is elongated. There is besides a batch of fluttering a nd trailing from one subdivision to another, and more wave and weaving of caput and organic structure. Sometimes with wing and tail plumes spread. Considerable clicking accompanies these rotations. Nesting Sometime during the courting period the existent choice of a nesting pit occurs. The female is normally, though non ever, the dominant bird and selects the nesting site. Ounce selected, both birds dig the hole. Downies will characteristically put the nesting pit 3-50 pess above the land on the bottom of an exposed dead limb. The brace will jump excavation because merely one bird at a clip can suit into the pit. As the hole is cut deeper, the bird working may vanish into the hole and remain out of sight for 15-20 proceedingss, looking merely long plenty to throw out french friess. ( This is unlike chickadees, which will transport their french friess off from the nesting site, downies are non concerned about marauders happening french friess at the base of the nesting tree. ) Then t he brace will alter displacements for 15 or 20 proceedingss while the other bird digs. Though the female does most of the work, this may change with single braces. Regardless, the pit is finished in about a hebdomad. When the pit is completed, sometime in mid May, it is shaped much like a calabash. The entryway is 1! /4 inches in diameter. It is dug directly about four inches, so curves down 8-10 more inches and widens to about three inches in diameter. At the really bottom, the the pit narrows to about two inches, where a few french friess are left to function as a nest. It is believed that peckerwoods have been nesting in pits so long in evolutionary clip that nesting stuff is no longer used. Chickadees and bluebirds have been nesting in pits for a shorter period of clip, and still construct a nest at the underside of the pit as they did when they built their nests in the unfastened. The eggs, excessively, reflect this. Speciess that have been utilizing pits for many 1000s of old ages, like the peckerwoods, lay pure white eggs. No protective colour is needed when they are hidden in a pit. Fairy bluebirds and chickadees, on the other manus, still lay eggs with some protective colour on them pinpoints in the instance of chickadees and pale blue in bluebirds # 8217 ; eggs. Downy peckerwoods lay four to five pure white eggs, which are incubated by both parents through the 12 yearss required for hatching. They take bends during the daylight hours ; the male incubates at dark. The downy, like other peckerwoods, will seldom utilize the same nesting pit twelvemonth after twelvemonth. Alternatively, the site is taken over the following twelvemonth by chickadees, titmice, tree sups, Wrens, and sometimes bluebirds. This forces the downlike twosome to bore another nesting pit each twelvemonth. Young Downies When the immature hatch, they are bare, blind, helpless, red-colored, and rather unattractive. During the first few critical yearss after hatching, the grownups tak e bends in the pit, one dwelling the immature while the other bird is garnering nutrient. The male normally broods at dark. Downies swallow and regurgitate their nutrient to the immature for merely four to five yearss. After that they carry insects and other bugs, chiefly spiders, emmets, and moths, to the childs in their measures. The older the biddies get, the more nutrient the grownups must supply. It isn # 8217 ; t long before the immature can be heard chippering in the pit and both parents are feeding from daylight until dark. At times they are feeding every bit frequently as ounce a minute! A few yearss after hatching, plumes start to turn on the immature, and by the clip they are 14 yearss old, their tail plumes are long plenty to back up their weight. It is so that they make their first visual aspect at the pit entryway. For the following hebdomad, the childs spend a great trade of their clip taking bends at the pit entryway, heads out, chippering aloud, expecting the follo wing repast. At 21 to 24 yearss, the immature are ready to go forth the pit on their first flight. A New York observer gave a good acount of a downlike household # 8217 ; s last few yearss in the pit: # 8220 ; The immature chattered most of the clip during the last two yearss of nest life. One at a clip they looked out a great trade at the unusual outer universe. They left the nest on on the eleventh of June. The last two, a male and a female, left during the afternoon, each after being fed at the entryway and seeing the parent wing off. The immature male flew from the nesting hole straight to a tree 60 pess off. His sister rapidly followed, illuming on the bole of the same tree and following her parent up the bole in the hitching mode of their sort as though she had been practising this perpendicular motive power all of her life. # 8221 ; The perceiver could separate male childs from female because they already had a somewhat different visual aspect. Like their grownup opposite numbers, the immature males have red on their caputs and the females do non. The ruddy on the caput of the juvenile male is non a little topographic point on the dorsum of the caput as in the grownup male, but a much larger country of ruddy and tap on the whole Crown. The childs are besides slightly fluffy or # 8220 ; downy # 8221 ; looking. The juvenile female expressions like the juvenile male, without the ruddy Crown. This juvenile feather will be worn but a short clip, for all downies, immature and grownup, moult into winter feather in September. Ounce the immature have fledged, the parents divide the brood and merely take attention of their charges. The male will normally take one or two of the immature, while the female takes the others. Harmonizing to survey, immature downies become independent at the age of 41 yearss. Many people have seen childs on suet feeders in late summer with no evident grownup bodyguard, nor any involvement in other downies in the country. In fact, the grownups will drive off the childs at the suet feeders. Downy peckerwoods have merely one brood a twelvemonth in the North, but sometimes two in the South. Winter for a Downy By September the downy peckerwood household has broken up, the immature of the twelvemonth expression like grownups, and all become lone and quiet. As cold conditions attacks, the first order of concern is to turn up a winter perching pit. Apparently, downies do non utilize their nesting pits as winter roosts ; most birds bore fresh roosts in expectancy of the long winter in front. These readyings, nevertheless, are non made at the fast gait of most other birds in fall. The species that must migrate to warmer climes seem to be ungratified and in such a haste about everything. But non the downy. It remains unagitated in the thick of the bunco. Such is the personality of the lasting occupant. Despite this, there are some surveies which indicate that some downies, particularily females, do go forth the genteel ness district ; others don # 8217 ; t. The grounds for these fluctuations are non clear. The down # 8217 ; s winter is spent softly and entirely, seeking the doormant forest for nutrient. The gait of life has slowed, and frequently its pat, pat, pat is the lone sound to be heard above the air current in the trees. The downy is good equiped to last the coldest conditions. It even takes playful baths in the snow piled high on subdivisions. A adult female in Canada described one such incident: # 8220 ; This forenoon a female downy flew to a horizantal subdivision and proceeded smartly to bathe in the loose snow lying at that place. Like a redbreast in a puddle. Mrs. Downy ducked her caput, ruffled her plumes and fluttered her wings, throwing some of the snow over her dorsum and dispersing the remainder to the winds. # 8221 ; The downy peckerwood # 8217 ; s winter nutrient is non limitless. The insects apon which it survives stopped multiplying when cold conditions arrived. As clip base on ballss, the bird must seek more and more diligently to feed itself. It gets some aid from the sets of chickadees, titmice, and nutcrackers with whom it portions the winter forests. Downies will frequently remain slackly associated with these species as they cruise the forests in hunt of concealed morsels. But the downy is tied slightly to the country near its roosting hole, since it will return to it every eventide at sundown. Therefore, the eating countries environing the roosting pit become a downy’s single winter feeding district, which it will support against other downies. Backyard eating Stationss are the exclusion. For some unexplained ground, eating Stationss are a # 8220 ; common land # 8221 ; for all birds in all seasons. Normally ( in the right conditions ) there will be between six and ten downies at suet feeders at assorted times every twenty-four hours during the winter. There will be fewer during the summer. That is likely because there is more natural nutrient in the summer and genteelness districts are more strictly defended. Regardless, the downies take bends at feeders, staying by some sort of armistice at the suet, though there are frequently battles over who feeds foremost. Territorial Disputes When two males or two females come face to face over a territorial difference, they spread their wings, raise their crests and presume a ambitious attitude and scold each other. Most of this is bold, of class, for they shortly settle down, unless one or the other progresss toward a female. Flight Like the other members of the peckerwood kin, th e downy has a distinguishable undulatin flight that is most apparent when it crosses unfastened countries or slides through forests. The dips are non every bit deep as those of a goldflinch, but as ornithologist Arthur Cleveland Bent said, # 8220 ; It gives the consequence of a ship fliping somewhat in a heavy sea. A few shots carry the bird up to the crest of the moving ridge the wings clapping near to the side of the organic structure so, at the crest, with the wings shut, the bird jousts somewhat foward, and slides down into the following trough. # 8221 ; Enemies A ; Camouflage Though no songster is wholly safe from marauders, non many downy peckerwoods fall quarry to peddle, owls, and other winged huntsmans. When attacked, downies are rather adroit at dodging bird of preies by fluttering around the subdivisions of their natural home ground. They can besides flatten themselves against the bark of a tree bole and go about unseeable to any chaser. Maurice Thompson described a do wny # 8217 ; s defence against a Accipiter gentilis: # 8220 ; The downy darted through the leaf and flattened itself against a big oak bough, where it remained motionless as the bark itself. The hawk lit on the same bough within a few pess of its intended victim, and remained sitting at that place for a few minutes, seeking in vain. The black and white plumes of the downy blended absolutely with the bark and lichen on the tree. # 8221 ; Other enemies, queerly, include house Wrens, which have been known to wait until downies have completed work on their nesting cavaties before allowing the site for themselves. Incredible as it may sound, the house Wren can be aggressive plenty to assail a brace of downies and drive them from their ain nesting site to secure the pit for its ain. Squirrels, peculiarly ruddy squirrels, will destruct the eggs and immature of downlike peckerwoods. Attracting Downies Food, screen, and H2O are the three basic demands of all wildlife and downy peckerwoods are no exclusion. Food and screen decidedly take precedence over H2O, as downies rarely drink at birdbaths. Mature trees in an unfastened forest are the preferable home ground, but any sort of natural screen is better than none at all. A assorted base of oaks, linden, maples, and willows will accommodate downies absolutely. Food is simple. Downy peckerwoods love beef suet. Be certain that you get existent beef suet at the meatman store. So frequently a meatman will give or sell you gripe fat, which downies will reluctantly eat in the winter. They prefer existent suet, which is the difficult, white, opaque fat environing the beef kidney. Regular beef fat has a greasier, semitransparent visual aspect. It will besides break up in warm conditions and attract flies. Suet will non. That is why beef suet is reccomended all twelvemonth long. It is every spot as successful with downies in summer as winter. Plus, the suet feeder is the topographic point where most of the babe downies are fir st seen by worlds. They are so cunning with their ruddy caps and dumpy visual aspect. At first a parent bird feeds the child suet. Then it tries to acquire the child to feed itself. All that free amusement is yours to bask if you put up a suet feeder. Other feeding station nutrients that downies will eat include insignificant butter ( it # 8217 ; s a false belief that peanut butter sticks in the pharynxs of birds ) , rings, nutmeats, sunflower seeds, maize staff of life, and cracked maize meats. But beef suet is by far the most popular with all the peckerwoods. Will a downlike peckerwood nest in a bird house? Though most books on pulling birds or edifice birdhouses give dimensions for downy peckerwood houses, there does non look to be any record of a downy nesting in a semisynthetic house. However, there are records of downies utilizing birdhouses as winter roosts. Particular Adaptations The downy has many versions, runing from the tail plumes to the lingua. First of all the downy # 8217 ; s toes are different than most other birds. Alternatively of holding three toes in the forepart and one in the dorsum, the downy has two toes in the forepart and two in back. This agreement makes the downy # 8217 ; s alone tripod of two pess and stiff tail plumes more effectual. The toes have besides adapted another manner. The outer hind toe is longer than the remainder of the toes to maintain it from rocking. The downy # 8217 ; s tail is besides particular. Unlike most birds the downy # 8217 ; s tail plumes are long and stiff. This helps equilibrate the birds weight as it stands vertically on a tree. Another version of the downy peckerwood is their unusual measure. It is non pointed like most other birds, but it is chisel-shaped. A chisel- molded measure makes the downy # 8217 ; s work of carving a nesting and perching pit easier. The measure besides helps the downy bit the wood around the insects buried in a tree. The lingua is besides deserving observing. At twice the size of the downy # 8217 ; s caput, the lingua easy spears little morsels with a aroused tip of recurvate shots. Yes, even the skull has changed to suit the downy # 8217 ; s demands. The skull of the downy is stronger and thicker than most other birds. So logically it is besides heavier. This excess weight makes the small air hammer more effectual. But most astonishing is non how the downy has adapted, it is its accomplishment to accommodate. When European colonists invaded the downy peckerwoods # 8217 ; district 200 to 300 old ages ago, the birds did non withdraw as did many of our native species. Alternatively, they accepted as a place the groves and shadow trees with which adult male replaced the woods. Our early bird watchers were in understanding when they characterized the bird. Audubon remarked in 1842 that it # 8220 ; is possibly non surpassed by any of its folk in robustness, industry, or vivacity. # 8221 ; Alexander Wilson said ten old ages earlier that # 8220 ; the chief features of this small bird are diligence, acquaintance, doggedness, # 8221 ; and spoke of a brace of downies working at their nest # 8220 ; with the most tireless diligence. # 8221 ; And so it is today. The downy peckerwood remains good and unconcerned by the menaces of adult male. It merely softly flits around the backyard forest, pat, pat, tap-ing its manner through life. The Downy Woodpecker Habitat Downies take place in the United States and southern Canada. They have been recorded at lifts of up to 9,000 pess. The downies are non deep-forested birds, preferring deciduous trees. Open forests, river Grovess, groves, swamps, farming area, and suburban backyards are all favourite hangouts of the downy. Downies will besides nest in metropolis Parkss. About the lone topographic point you won # 8217 ; t happen them is comeuppances. The most attractive human home sites are woodlands broken up by logged spots in a waterside country. Downies besides enjoy unfastened shrubb ery with Grovess of immature deciduous trees. Call ( s ) Like the hairy peckerwood, the downy beats a tattoo on a dry resonant tree subdivision. This drumming is the downy # 8217 ; s vocal, though they do do some vocal noises. They have several single-syllable call notes which include tchick, an aggressive societal note ; a tick and a tkhirrr, which are alarm notes. There is besides a location call, known as a # 8220 ; whinny # 8221 ; , made up of a twelve or more tchicks all strung together. Scientific Names The downy peckerwood # 8217 ; s scientific name is Picoides pubescens. There are besides six peculiar downies with six peculiar scientific names all from different parts of the United States and southern Canada which I have listed below: southern downy / Dryobates pubescensGairdner # 8217 ; s peckerwood / Gairdneri pubescensBatchelder # 8217 ; s peckerwood / Leucurus pubescensnorthern downy / Medianus pubescensNelson # 8217 ; s downy / Nelsoni pubescenswillow peckerwood / Turati pubescens The downy peckerwood is sometimes reffered to as # 8220 ; small downy. # 8221 ; Behavior Towards Humans The downy is unimpeachably the friendliest peckerwood. A bird lover in Wisconsin described downies at their feeding station: # 8220 ; The downies will endorse down to the suet container on the linden tree while I sit merely a few pess off on the terrace. Even when I walk right up to them, most downies will non wing off, but will merely dart around the rear of the tree bole and peep about to see what I am making. If I press them, they will skip up the rear of the tree bole and so wing to a higher subdivision. Food Besides being friendly, downlike peckerwoods are our good friends for another ground. Most of the insects they eat are considered destructive to adult male # 8217 ; s groves and forest merchandises. About 75 % of their diet is made up of carnal affair gleaned from bark and crannies where insect larvae and eggs lie hidden. While standing on that alon e tripod of two legs and and a tail, downies hitch up and down tree short pantss in hunt of a whole laundry list of insect plagues. With their particular chisel-like measures and horny, gluey linguas, downies are adept at tweaking out great Numberss of beetle chow, insect cocoons, or batches of insect eggs. They besides eat spiders, snails, emmets, beetles, weevils, and caterpillars, with other local insects included. 25 % of a downy # 8217 ; s diet are workss made up of the berries of toxicant Hedera helix, mountain ash, Virginia creeper, Juneberry, tupelo, and cornel. Downies besides eat the seeds of oaks, apples, hornbeams, sumac, hickory, and beach. Acorns, beachnuts, and walnuts are the peculiar favourites. Dr. John Confer and his pupils at Ithaca College have studied the downy peckerwood # 8217 ; s usage of goldenrod saddle sores as a beginning of nutrient. They discovered the downy # 8217 ; s small air hammer is merely the tool needed to bore a hole in the side of the one to two inch goldenrod saddle sore and pull out the bantam chow contained indoors. In fact, Confer # 8217 ; s surveies show that the goldenrod chow form an of import portion of the peckerwood # 8217 ; s winter diet. Plumage Tap, pat, pat! Tap, pat, pat! It is interesting how the downy peckerwood props itself with those stiff tail plumes while cleaving to the bark. The tail relieves the birds weight. This alone tripod allows the downy to skip up the tree bole with easiness, but it must endorse down in the same place, a more akward gesture. The downy peckerwood gets its name of downy because of its soft all right plumes. The downy, smallest of the peckerwood kin, is non even every bit large as a redbreast. It is merely about the size of the of a house sparrow at six inches tall. The downy can be separated from all other peckerwoods except the hairy by the wide, white strip down its dorsum. The downy and the hairy are frequently confused since their markers are rather similar. Both sc ope across the same district except the lower sou-west where the downy is less frequently seen. There are truly merely two ways to separate the downy and the hairy. ( 1 ) Expression at the measure of the two birds. The downy will hold a much shorter, stubbier measure. ( 2 ) The downy is about 2/3 the size of the hairy. That is another good hint to look for. The downy is most likely to be the 1 that you see at the feeder, since the haired keeps more to the forest than the downy. However, both will feed at feeders in the winter months, on suet particularly. The tail, wings, and back of both the downy and hairy peckerwoods have a black chromaticity intermingled with white musca volitanss. A black cap adorns each, below which there is a white band. A little vermilion spot appears on the lower dorsum of the caput. Another black band is below this. The downies have barred outer tail plumes non found on the hairies. Courtship Regardless of the lift, downy peckerwoods begin believing about nesting earlier than most birds and several months before they really nest. After passing the winter entirely, the downies seem to come to life in early February, traveling more rapidly and taking more involvement in their ain species. Their normal pat, pat, pat becomes a rather different unbroken trrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, enduring several seconds. The tapping is no longer merely an attempt to happen nutrient but a agency of pass oning to other downies that this is # 8220 ; my # 8221 ; district. It is besides the first effort to pull a mate. Both sexes membranophone. So early does this beating Begin that it is non unusual to hear it on sub-zero forenoons. Some bird watchers believe that downy peckerwoods retain the same mate every bit long as they live. In this instance, all the brace has to make in the spring is to regenerate their brace bonds. This fidelity, nevertheless, seems to be a consequence of an fond regard to the nesting site instead than between the birds. After the d rumming has united the brace, the existent wooing begins with a funny dance or # 8220 ; weaving # 8221 ; action by both sexes. With their cervix stretched out and measure pointed in line with their caput and organic structure from side to side equilibrating on the tips of their tail. Their full organic structure is elongated. There is besides a batch of fluttering and trailing from one subdivision to another, and more wave and weaving of caput and organic structure. Sometimes with wing and tail plumes spread. Considerable clicking accompanies these rotations. Nesting Sometime during the courting period the existent choice of a nesting pit occurs. The female is normally, though non ever, the dominant bird and selects the nesting site. Ounce selected, both birds dig the hole. Downies will characteristically put the nesting pit 3-50 pess above the land on the bottom of an exposed dead limb. The brace will jump excavation because merely one bird at a clip can suit into the pit. As the hole is cut deeper, the bird working may vanish into the hole and remain out of sight for 15-20 proceedingss, looking merely long plenty to throw out french friess. ( This is unlike chickadees, which will transport their french friess off from the nesting site, downies are non concerned about marauders happening french friess at the base of the nesting tree. ) Then the brace will alter displacements for 15 or