The interesting facts from whatbird.com:

  • A group of woodpeckers has many collective nouns, including a “descent”, “drumming”, and “gatling” of woodpeckers.
  • As the smallest North American woodpecker, the Downy can drill cavities in dead trees or limbs that measure as little as 10 cm around. This means that it can live in a wider range of habitat than can larger woodpeckers.
  • Males tend to feed in the tops of trees on branches that are small in diameter, females feed midlevel and lower on larger diameter branches.
  • The Downy Woodpecker uses sources of food that larger woodpeckers cannot, such as the insect fauna on weed stems.