Downy Woodpecker, yellow leaves
Dryobates pubescens
Downy Woodpecker · Constitution Marsh · 17 October 2026
A Downy Woodpecker on the trunk of a tree in yellowing leaf at Constitution Marsh. North America's smallest woodpecker lives in every kind of wood across the continent and stays all winter, feeding on insects dug from under bark.
Around a marsh in winter it has another larder. The round swellings on goldenrod stems are galls, each with a single fly larva inside, and Downies peck straight into them for it, which is why goldenrod galls with a neat hole in the side turn up all over a meadow by spring.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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