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Hairy Woodpecker is the larger of the two picoides woodpeckers most familiar to eastern U.S. birders,
best distinguish by its relative bill size (smaller in Downy Woodpecker). In the western United States, Hairy Woodpeckers
are considerably darker than their eastern counterparts, and are more readily confused with their congeners
Three-toed and Black-backed Woodpeckers. I remember reading an article somewhere that posited that, in transcontinental
avian species, western populations virtually always are more darkly plumaged. The bird pictured here is part of the interior western
population of Hairy Woodpecker, filmed near Barfoot Lookout in southeastern Arizona, in July of 2003.
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