Red-bellied Woodpecker

• Ever wonder why woodpeckers don't get headaches? Their brains are in slings, sort of. Their spongy skull bones are encased in muscular shock absorbers.
• A baby woodpecker can't hold its head up because it's tongue is too heavy. In fact, the tongue is five times as long as the beek...curled up inside the mouth.
• Woodpeckers ruin utility poles, so some Texas researchers are trying to come up with a distasteful pole.
• The typical hammer rate of a woodpecker is 15 per second.
• When you hear a woodpecker drumming on a drainpipe, he's not trying to dig a hole in it. He's sending out territorial warning signals.
• Woodpeckers lack the fluffy down feathers of most other birds, so a cozy hole in a tree helps keep them warm in winter.
• Woodpeckers have long, slender tongues that they use to probe for insects. When it's not using that amazing tongue to catch insects, it coils it around the back of its skull.
• Besides insects, Downy Woodpeckers eat berries—even poison ivy berries!