Woodpeckers at My Feeders

After not having seen much of this Woodpecker species all summer, Mr. Hairy Woodpecker is back at our feeder area now feasting daily on peanuts. I refer to this bird shown above as Mr., simply to indicate it is the male of the species. The male Hairy Woodpecker has a red patch on the back of its head as does this one in the first two pictures. Shown below is a Downy Woodpecker and this one is a female, for just like the Hairy Woodpecker species, the red patch on the back of the head denotes that it is a male, but in this case, you can see no indication of red on the Downy pictured so we know it is a female.
The Hairy and Downy Woodpecker appear very similar in markings but there are three things that I look for when deciding which species I am looking at. The first is size as the Hairy is larger than the Downy. Just compare the size of the Hairy shown below in relation to the feeder cylinder, to the photo of the Downy above at the same peanut feeder. The Hairy also has a large long bill whereas the Downy has a small bill, and bill size is the second characteristic that I look
for.
The third thing I always look for are the little black marks that look like 'dashes' on the underside of the Downy's tail. If they are not there then it is a Hairy Wood- pecker for the Hairy does not have these undertail markings. The last photo shown here is of a female Downy Woodpecker.