Participant Photo: Buff-Headed Downy Woodpecker

After much searching, I believe this is just a downy woodpecker whose head and breast feathers have been “dyed” by tannins/tree sap. I thought it was a sapsucker at first, but all the markings suggest a downy, so the buffy colored threw me for a loop!

All the white feathers on the head and upper breast and neck are a buffy orange-red, much like the coloring on a female rose-breasted grosbeak.

This link has been the only mention and picture of a buff colored woodpecker I’ve been able to find: https://web.colby.edu/mainebirds/2012/10/21/albinism-and-other-feather-oddities/