Thank you all very much. It is decided then, the feeder stays! I looked up pictures of both the downey and hairy and agree it looks like a hairy woodpecker more. Getting a decent photo of a bird for identification is considerably more difficult than trees. Even my wife's 10mp point and click leaves a little to be desired. One of my neighbor's Bradford Pears has been attacked by some woodpecker. It is the only tree in either of our yards I have seen with damage and being a tree forum regular I have grown to dislike Bradfords anyway lol.

Do not use mylar strips before an egg is laid - it will spook other birds. Try monofilament in the interim for HOSP. http://www.sialis.org/hosp.htm#monofilament Downies will not nest in your box - they will use it for roosting. or try a Gilbertson box paired with the wooden one - HOSP like it less. Here is a link that might be useful: all about downy woodpeckers.

Thanks all. I do feel lucky to see them, especially in a suburban area. Fortunately we have a lot of woods and habitat around for them. They do seem to come and go. I will see them daily for a while, and then go for a stretch where I don't see them for a few months. When they're here, it's hard to keep up with their appetite! I bought a case of suet plugs last week.

here it is only miles away to be in the high mountains. This time of year it's too snowy and deep in the mountains and most of the birds move down to the foothills and the river bottoms. there is about a foot of snow on the ground here and we have some woodpeckers and dozens of juncos and nut hatches and chickadees. But if i travel 15 or 20 miles south the elevation drops several thousand foot and its a lot more sagebrush and scrub trees and even desest and there a a lot more birds and only patches of snow on the ground. Next spring as it warms up lots of birds will magrate up here from the lower areas and i have woodpeckers that nest close by. but as it gets summer they leave for the mountains, and next fall they start coming back down again. In the spring and fall i get downeys and flickers, acorn woodpeckers Lewis's woodpeckers and an occanional hairy woopecker. but summers nothing and a few hardy downeys and a couples flickers here in the winter.