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.

I'll take anything except HOSP. :) I live in a neighborhood setting..postage stamp sized lots that was built in the 40s-50s, so no bluebirds here...if I was close by to an open field I'd prolly get some though, but no dice. The HOSP are nasty friggin' non-native creatures. I do have a HOSP trap that I used last summer..the neighbor would breed them and I would trap them..it was a lovely cycle. I suppose you are right about letting the Downey have it..which is fine by me..I love those little woodpeckers..the problem I have is that I don't know if once the Downey makes the nest and lays the eggs, will the mylar scare them away as it will be in place to scare the HOSP. Bluebirds, wrens and Chickadees aren't bothered by the mylar strips so that was never an issue. IDK about the Downey and if they are afraid of the mylar strips then we run the risk of them abandoning their nest and or nestlings. BUT if I don't use the mylar the HOSP will enter the nestbox and peck the eggs out and kill nestlings if they are in there..they will also attack the roosting woodpecker too. Catch 22, no?

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.