At my backyard feeding station, suet is the Hairy Woodpecker’s preferred snack of choice followed by peanut halves.
These birds will also eat sunflower seeds (hulled and in the shell) and safflower.
Hairy Woodpeckers look very similar to Downy Woodpeckers but they are a little larger and have longer bills. You can see the size difference here (Hairy on the left and Downy on the right).
According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s All About Birds website, “more than 75% of the Hairy Woodpecker’s diet is made up of insects, particularly the larvae of wood-boring beetles and bark beetles, ants, and moth pupae in their cocoons” but they do visit backyard feeders for seeds—especially in winter.
