Report on the topic “Woodpecker” will tell you about these beautiful animals.
Woodpecker Report
The woodpecker is a bird from the woodpecker family, which has about 220 species. The most common are the Great and Lesser Spotted Woodpecker. The main habitat is North Africa and Europe, and only 5 species live on the American continent.
What does a woodpecker eat?
The woodpecker feeds mainly on bark beetle larvae and insects, which it takes out from under the bark.
The woodpecker is a very useful bird; it rids trees of bark beetles. It eats 750-900 bark beetles per day. Every year he makes a new hollow for himself, and leaves the old one for other birds.
In winter, the woodpecker feeds on seeds coniferous trees.
Description of the woodpecker
The woodpecker has a motley coloration. He climbs trees well, with help from: short legs with tenacious claws. The hard tail makes it possible to rest securely against the trunk to form a strong support. The woodpecker's beak is straight, strong and sharp.
The structure of the skull of this bird allows it to protect the brain from sudden and frequent blows. Except strong bones heads exist the whole system softening, represented by additional fluids and sinuses.
The male and female make the nest together, hollowing it out in the trunk of an aspen, alder or birch tree. At night, woodpeckers rest in an upright position, clinging their claws to a tree trunk or to the walls of a hollow.
The woodpecker is called the forest orderly! The woodpecker culls sick, pest-infested trees.
Woodpeckers move along the tree in a spiral and constantly tap, chiseling the bark. The bird's tongue is covered with sticky saliva and small teeth with which it pricks insects.
How do woodpeckers live?
These birds are sedentary. They do not fly to warm countries for the winter. The most they can do is a short flight to another forest, where there will be food all winter. The way they feed allows them to spend the winter in the same places, because in winter, when there is no possibility of finding insects, they can eat the seeds of pine trees.
The woodpecker makes a hollow for its nest, finding holes in dry trees and enlarging them with its beak.
In spring, males stage real duels on drums. Having found a dry standing trunk, the duelist chooses a place on it that is as dry as possible in the sun. It is this that produces the loudest and ringing sound, when the musician begins to quickly knock on it with his beak. It is these fractions that we hear in the spring forest.
Woodpeckers belong to the order Woodpeckers and form which unites approximately thirty genera and two hundred and twenty species. Almost all woodpeckers lead either a sedentary or nomadic lifestyle.
Flights, as a rule, are made only on small distances, and they fly reluctantly. Woodpeckers do not form colonies, but almost always live alone.
Woodpeckers are small to medium sized birds. Their body length varies from eight to fifty centimeters, and weight from seven to four hundred and fifty grams. A woodpecker that lives in South America weighs seven grams - the golden-fronted woodpecker (its body length is only eight centimeters).
Most major representative family lives in South-East Asia. This is a great Müllerian woodpecker. The length of his body exceeds sixty centimeters, and his weight is six hundred grams.
The distribution range of woodpeckers covers forest zones. This feature of their life was reflected in particular on the structure of the legs of these birds. Woodpeckers' legs are short. The long fingers (two of which point forward and two point back) are equipped with sharp claws.
Basically, individuals of all species of woodpeckers, when climbing trees, have support in the form of tail feathers, which are very well developed. The exception is the woodpeckers, which form a subfamily.
Woodpeckers have a strong and thin beak. It is used to chisel wood or bark in search of food or when making a nest. The beak of the whirligigs is not suitable for these purposes. It is too weak and not designed for chiselling wood.
Woodpeckers have a rough long tongue. It serves to extract the detected insect from the passages in the wood. The diet of some woodpeckers includes termites, ants and even berries, and in winter time- plants' seeds.
Woodpeckers usually have a clutch of three to seven eggs. white with a shiny surface. Incubation period varies from ten to twelve days. Both the female and the male take part in incubation. The chicks are born helpless and naked.
The distribution range of woodpeckers is huge. These birds are distributed almost everywhere. They cannot be found except in the polar regions, in Madagascar, New Guinea, New Zealand, Australia, Ireland and on some oceanic islands. In Russia you can meet representatives of fourteen species of the woodpecker family. Of these, the most common are the small spotted woodpecker, the great spotted woodpecker, the three-toed gray woodpecker, the green woodpecker, as well as the wryneck and yellow woodpecker. Woodpeckers inhabit wooded areas. Often these birds are attached specifically to forests. Here they live, making their home in the trees, and here they feed. Biological diversity is ensured, among other things, by climatic conditions - abundance is facilitated, for example, by high relative humidity. The fact is that in humid air more trees susceptible to rotting and fungal infection. This creates ideal conditions for the existence of insects. And the latter are already included in the diet of woodpeckers. There are some species of woodpeckers that have been able to adapt to living in desert conditions. This is, for example, found in the territory South America the Andean Avocet-billed Woodpecker and the South African Ground Woodpecker, found in Africa. The green woodpecker finds its food almost exclusively on the ground.
Woodpeckers nest in hollows. This applies to all members of the family. An interesting fact is that some individuals hollow out hollows on their own (they belong to most species of the family), while others do not. For example, whirligigs are simply not able to hollow out a hollow themselves. However, these birds are able to deepen or expand an existing hollow. As a rule, it takes about two weeks to build and equip one hollow. But the cockade, found in the southeastern United States, can build one hollow for several years.
Ivory-billed Woodpecker - resident North America. Individuals of the ivory-billed woodpecker are found in the southeast of this continent. Representatives of the species have colonized vast areas of swampy forests. The coloring is strict. Black is the primary plumage color of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker. Wide white stripes are present on the sides of the neck (starting from the back of the head). These stripes connect to each other on the back. Almost the entire wing of the ivory-billed woodpecker is also white. Representatives of this species are endowed with a beautiful crest. In the female it is black, and in the male it is bright red. The ivory-billed woodpecker has a gray beak, which is how this woodpecker got its name. The Ivory-billed Woodpecker has big sizes. The length of its body exceeds half a meter. These woodpeckers live in pairs. It is possible that established pairs last throughout life. The diet of ivory-billed woodpeckers typically includes pupae, larvae, and adults of beetles; at the end of summer and autumn they diversify it with fruits and berries of wild trees.
The breeding season of ivory-billed woodpeckers is in March. These birds are extremely careful. During the nesting period, they look for the most secluded corners of the forest. A hollow is constructed only in the trunk of a living tree. As a rule, it is oak. The hollow is located at a significant height. Often the entrance to a hollow is under a branch or large bough. This is necessary in order to protect the hollow from water flowing into it in rainy weather. Both the male and the female hollow out the hollow. The number of eggs in a clutch varies from five to seven. They have a pure white surface. The eggs are placed directly at the bottom of the hollow. In the south of the distribution range of ivory-billed woodpeckers, chicks hatch twice per season. In the northern regions of their distribution range, woodpeckers have only one clutch per season.
The habits of the ivory-billed woodpecker are special. These birds have an unusually beautiful undulating flight, and during the flight from one tree to another, the ivory-billed woodpecker first rises to the very top of the tree and then flies down. At the same time, he describes a smooth arc (does not flap his wings). The Ivory-billed Woodpecker rarely travels long distances. To a much greater extent, he prefers climbing tree branches and trunks. Often jumps from one tree to another.
The voice of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker can be heard within a radius of one kilometer. Ivory-billed woodpeckers produce the three-syllable, clear, pleasant and ringing cry “pat-pat-pat” so often that it is sometimes difficult to answer the question whether these birds are silent for at least a minute throughout the day.
Woodpeckers' careful inspection of trunks is important for searching for food. These birds begin their search for food from the bottom of the tree. The woodpecker moves upward in a spiral, inspecting not only the trunk, but also large branches. Woodpeckers poke holes and cracks in the bark, where they find insects. Woodpeckers are very strong birds. They can beat off a sliver twenty centimeters long with just one blow of their beak. When woodpeckers look for a withered tree, a couple square meters they knock off the surface of its trunk in just a couple of hours.
The beauty of ivory-billed woodpeckers is the reason for their destruction. People kill these birds for their unusual heads. Travelers often crave the head of this woodpecker as a souvenir. For them, this is a kind of souvenir, reminiscent of those places where the ivory-billed woodpecker lives on marshy soils. These days, the ivory-billed woodpecker has become a rare bird. Moreover, it has already disappeared from a significant part of its distribution area.
The acorn woodpecker is thrifty. Its reserves are huge. In autumn, acorn woodpeckers gouge thousands of small holes in the trunks and branches of pines, eucalyptus, and oaks. They serve as a place for acorns. Sometimes woodpeckers make similar cells even in telegraph poles. Moreover, the size of woodpecker storerooms is amazing. For example, in one of the forests in California, approximately twenty thousand acorns were counted, which were driven into the bark of a sycamore tree by an acorn woodpecker. Moreover, approximately fifty thousand acorns were found in the bark of one pine tree.
Acorn woodpeckers live in separate groups. Each group includes from three to twelve woodpeckers and occupies a rather large territory. Outsiders are expelled from the occupied territory, and each member of the group participates in defense. The whole group prepares acorns together and also uses the prepared supplies together, if necessary. With the onset of spring, the folded group does not break up into separate pairs. One common nest is established, and all females lay eggs in it. Incubation of the clutch also occurs collectively, as does the feeding of the offspring that are born. A monogamous lifestyle among acorn woodpeckers is rare and almost always temporary. These are the instincts.
The green woodpecker is distinguished by its beauty. Yellowish color have wings and a dorsal side of the body, brown color the flight feathers are endowed with the rump feathers being shiny yellow. The tail is brownish-black in color. It is decorated with transverse grayish stripes. The back of the head and top of the head are reddish, while the cheeks and area around the eyes are black. The ventral side of the green woodpecker's body is pale green. This color varies with dark streaks. The body shape of the green woodpecker is somewhat similar to that of the great spotted woodpecker. However, the size of the green woodpecker is somewhat larger. The body length of the green woodpecker varies from thirty-five to thirty-seven centimeters, and the weight reaches two hundred and fifty grams.
The green woodpecker is an inhabitant of mixed and deciduous European forests. It is found east of the Volga, as well as in the Caucasus and Western Asia. The green woodpecker prefers to develop territories in which forests are replaced by open spaces, and open spaces by forests. It most readily settles in forests rich in trees of different ages. The diet of these birds includes a variety of insects, but the most preferred food is ants. The latter woodpeckers are ready to eat in huge quantities. Green woodpeckers, like other woodpeckers, look for insects on tree trunks, but to catch ants, the green woodpecker is forced to go down to the ground (which, in principle, it does not without hunting). Inside the discovered anthills, woodpeckers make deep passages. In a similar way Green woodpeckers search for pupae of these insects.
Green woodpeckers are cautious birds. Formed pairs of individuals establish hollows at a distance from each other. In this regard, meeting representatives of this species is not an easy task. Green woodpeckers, however, give away their location during the nesting period when they begin to make loud screams. Moreover, both the male and the female scream throughout the day in the same order. Green woodpeckers hollow out hollows mainly in old and decaying trees. These can be willows, sedges, and aspens. Eggs are laid in May. One clutch contains from five to nine shiny white eggs. Both parents participate in incubating the eggs and subsequently feeding the chicks.
The ground woodpecker is a medium-sized bird. The body length of the ground woodpecker is approximately twenty-five centimeters. The ground woodpecker has a rather modest plumage color - it is predominantly olive-brown. The head of the ground woodpecker is gray.
The ground woodpecker is an inhabitant of South American territories. He prefers to stick to treeless areas. The ground woodpecker often inhabits the slopes of ravines, high river banks or outcrops of mountain slopes. This kind of terrain is unusual for most members of the family. The ground woodpecker managed to adapt to such living conditions as much as possible. Representatives of this species can occasionally be seen in thickets of dense bushes. Ground woodpeckers move along the ground by jumping, which is where the name of the species comes from - these woodpeckers do not chisel the bark and wood of trees, but they are able to make passages on the slopes of hills, etc. They need passages both for arranging their homes and in searching food. The length of the dwelling of the ground woodpecker (where the offspring are born) reaches approximately one meter - in appearance it looks like a hole, which at the end forms a small cave. Woodpeckers, as a rule, cover the bottom of this cave with scraps of animal fur. The clutch of woodpeckers contains from three to five eggs. The eggs are pure white. For a significant part of their lives, representatives of this species dig in the ground in order to find food. Woodpeckers can also find food on the surface of the ground. Their diet includes insect larvae and adults; in addition, spiders and worms diversify their diet.
The golden woodpecker is endowed with bright colors. The coloring of this woodpecker is quite bright and beautiful. The dorsal side of the body of this small bird (the body length of the woodpecker is approximately twenty-seven centimeters) has a clay-brown color, which is varied by transverse streaks of black and a white rump. The ventral side of the golden woodpecker's body is white, with black spots standing out against it. A red stripe outlines the gray head of a golden woodpecker. The trunks of the tail and flight feathers are golden in color. When flying, representatives of this species flap their wings quite often. The distribution range of the golden woodpecker covers the lowland areas of the North American continent. The meat of the golden woodpecker is highly valued by hunters.
The red-headed woodpecker is a typical inhabitant of the North American continent. The red-headed woodpecker is relatively small in size - its body length reaches only twenty-three centimeters. This woodpecker has a dense build. His neck is short and his head is large. In North America, red-headed woodpeckers try to stick to sparse forests. These birds often fly to the edges of the forest to feed. Sometimes these woodpeckers fly into settlements. In spring, red-headed woodpeckers rarely build a new hollow. Basically, these birds find existing hollows, clear, “reconstruct” and use them. If several hollows are hollowed out on one tree, then only one of them is reoccupied. Red-headed woodpeckers hollow out hollows only in old, withered trees, while they cannot build a nest for themselves in healthy trees.
The red-headed woodpecker has a mischievous disposition. These birds are very restless. They can, for example, knock with their beaks on the roofs of residential buildings and climb on their windows. Red-headed woodpeckers often hide when a person approaches and then reveal themselves by drumming on the area where they are sitting. Thus, they seem to laugh at the person who did not immediately notice their presence. Red-headed woodpeckers can also cause trouble in human economic life. Huge flocks of these woodpeckers devastate orchards, eat berries, etc. These birds deal with apples in a very interesting way - thrusting their beaks into the fruit with all their might, they tear it off. With this inconvenient burden, the red-headed woodpecker flies up to the nearest fence, where, after breaking it into pieces, it eats it. Red-headed woodpeckers cause great damage to grain fields. These birds not only eat grains, they also trample the ears into the ground or simply break them.
Red-headed woodpeckers are capable of predation. These birds do not mind drinking eggs they find in the nests of small birds. Having satisfied their hunger, individuals of this species gather in small flocks. At this time, they begin hunting for insects. Sitting on branches, they look out for flying insects, and then, with the help of turns and pirouettes, grab them. This scene is very interesting to watch. The diet of these woodpeckers includes insects, berries and fruits, as well as grains and seeds of various plants.
The copper woodpecker is an inhabitant of North America. The distribution area covers semi-desert western regions mainland. The copper-headed woodpecker's lifestyle is somewhat identical to that of the golden woodpecker (the two species are somewhat similar in appearance). An important distinguishing feature of the copper woodpecker is its ability to prepare food. This feature is extremely important for the harsh conditions for birds where the copper woodpecker lives. The area, which is lifeless throughout almost the entire year, where the copper woodpecker lives, has a negative impression on any traveler who finds himself here, for whom an encounter with copper woodpeckers can be very joyful and positive. In the dry stems of agaves (small holes are made in the lower part of the stem, and then higher), representatives of this species create unique storerooms - here birds hide acorns. If you split the stem of an agave downwards, you will find that it is completely full of acorns, which the woodpecker is forced to spend a lot of energy stocking. However, time and effort are needed not only to build such warehouses, but also to find the acorns themselves. It is possible to get them only from the slopes of the nearest mountains, so copper woodpeckers are forced to make kilometer-long flights. During the dry season, copper woodpeckers can be seen in places where agaves form thickets - these are the warehouses of these woodpeckers. During the rainy season, copper woodpeckers disperse into the valleys - here they find insects, mainly ants.
The sharp-winged woodpecker is a small bird. Its size does not exceed the size of this woodpecker and is endowed with variegated plumage. Its color is variegated. Distinctive feature representatives of this species is the presence of sharp wings. The distribution range of these woodpeckers covers the territories of Sakhalin, the Ussuri Territory, the Japanese and southern Kuril Islands, the Korean Peninsula, as well as the northeastern provinces of China. During the nesting period, sharp-winged woodpeckers try to stick to plantings of soft tree species. These can be poplars, lindens, velvets, etc. In such trees it is easier for woodpeckers to hollow out a hollow for themselves or to find an existing one. Laying occurs in May. The rest of the time, representatives of this species can be found in flocks of tits. Together with these birds, sharp-winged woodpeckers search for insects, carefully examining the surface of bushes and trees.
The three-toed woodpecker is an unusual bird. It is very beautiful and colorfully colored. Black streaks adorn the white back of the three-toed woodpecker. The tail is black, edged with white stripes. The female three-toed woodpecker has a gray crown, while the male has a yellow crown. A distinctive feature of individuals of this species is the absence of one toe. Three-toed woodpeckers have only one toe facing backwards and two toes facing forwards. The three-toed woodpecker is small in size. The length of the wing of an individual varies from twelve to thirteen centimeters. The distribution range of these woodpeckers covers the territories of Eastern and Central Europe, Siberia, and North America. Three-toed woodpeckers prefer to inhabit dense coniferous forests. In the southern regions of their distribution range they live in mountain forests.
The breeding season for three-toed woodpeckers begins early. It starts in February and continues until May. At this time, the males actively knock on dry branches with their beaks, scream and chirp protractedly. Three-toed woodpeckers build hollows in spruce and larches (the latter option is preferable for these birds), most often these are burnt or rotting trees. Sometimes you can find the hollow of a three-toed woodpecker even in tree stumps. Representatives of this species, as a rule, construct a hollow at a height of one to six meters. The clutch consists of three to six white eggs. For some time after the chicks fly out of the nest, they wander through the forest with their parents. However, the brood soon disintegrates.
The three-toed woodpecker is a voracious bird. And very useful for the forest. Within one winter day this bird is capable of tearing off the bark from a spruce tree that is infected with bark beetles, and the number of the latter larvae reaches approximately ten thousand! But even if the three-toed woodpecker cannot cope with so much food in a day, the bark beetle larvae will still die in the cold.
The coloration of different individuals of the red-headed woodpecker varies. The main tone of the plumage of some individuals of this species is indeed red or rusty-red. The color of other individuals may be dark chestnut or Brown color. The tail and wings of the red-headed woodpecker have black transverse stripes. The plumage of representatives of this species is covered with a sticky substance - this is the juice of ants crushed by red-headed woodpeckers. The plumage of red-headed woodpeckers is saturated with the smell of formic acid. The red-headed woodpecker is a small bird - its body length is approximately twenty-five centimeters. One more interesting feature is underdevelopment thumb. Because of this, the paws of the red-headed woodpecker at first glance appear to be three-toed.
The red-headed woodpecker builds unique nests. Or rather, they don’t build them at all. Red-headed woodpeckers make their nest in an anthill. True, anthills are also unusual - they are built by large ants directly in the crowns of trees at a height of two to twenty meters from the surface of the earth. But the most surprising thing is that the ants do not touch the female incubating the eggs and the eggs themselves, although the female red-headed woodpecker easily pecks off the ant pupae. The red-headed woodpecker's clutch consists of three eggs. At first, the eggs have a white surface, but constant contact with formic acid does its job, and after some time the surface of the eggs becomes brownish.
The Great Spotted Woodpecker has variegated plumage. This is truly a very beautiful bird. The main plumage colors are black and white. Distinctive feature The difference between females and males is the absence of a red spot on the crown of the head.
Since ancient times, everyone has been familiar with the sound of a forest shot being knocked out, to which you involuntarily listen and rejoice like a child: woodpecker! In fairy tales, he is called a forest doctor and is endowed with the traits of a tireless worker, kind and persistent in establishing order and providing assistance. What is he really like?
Woodpecker family
The woodpecker family is huge and has settled almost all over the world, except Antarctica, Australia and several islands. It is difficult to count all their species: according to rough estimates, there are more than 200 living in large numbers, and the condition of others is little known, some are already recognized as extinct. There are 14 species of woodpecker birds in Russia.
Woodpecker feeding
The main food in the warm season consists of woodworms: insects, their larvae, termites, aphids. It is interesting that the woodpecker obtains food only from diseased and rotten plants, without touching healthy trees.
But simple gathering is not alien to it, so berries and plant seeds occupy a significant place in the diet; the woodpecker encroaches on small passerine birds, their eggs and chicks.
In winter, the main diet consists of seeds and nuts extracted from cones. coniferous plants. The woodpecker creates entire forges by placing cones in crevices and breaking them with his beak. In the forest you can find mountains of husks from such work. Sometimes creates storage rooms. In frosty weather, birds can approach cities, feeding on food waste and carrion.
Instead of water in winter, the woodpecker swallows snow, and in spring it likes to extract birch or maple sap by breaking through the bark of trees. Buds and young shoots of plants also become food.
Woodpecker reproduction and lifespan
The mating season of woodpeckers begins in the spring. Having decided on the choice of a pair, the birds build a nesting hollow. They work in turns, lining the bottom with wood chips. To protect the offspring from predators, they make two very small entrances and camouflage them with branches, and sometimes they immediately place their shelter under a tree tinder fungus.
3-7 white eggs are hatched in turn, and after 15 days the first chicks begin to appear. Their appearance is completely helpless: naked, blind, deaf. But after about a month, the fledgling inheritance squeals so much that it is not difficult for hunters to find them. Having not yet learned to fly, they are already running along the trunk.
Pictured is a woodpecker chick
A year later, sexual maturity sets in, but already in the first winter, the parents mercilessly drive away the young, since it is easier for woodpeckers to feed themselves one at a time. Woodpeckers live different types V natural conditions approximately from 5 to 11 years.
Woodpeckers in Russia
Representatives of different species of woodpeckers live in the forests of Russia, among which the most common are
- black or yellow,
- big motley,
- small motley,
- three-fingered gray-haired
- green.
Black is the most great woodpecker, weight up to 300 grams, from the woodpecker inhabitants of our country. It differs from others by its oval entrance to a spacious hollow. Another special feature is a long and loud trill, which is considered a call to relatives.
In the photo there is a black woodpecker bird
Big and small spotted woodpecker– these views are some of the most beautiful. Greater motley is often found in park areas and city limits. Small, about the size, lives in the Caucasus, and Primorye, on Sakhalin. It is considered the most playful and agile.
Pictured is a Great Spotted Woodpecker
Three-toed woodpecker- inhabitant of northern coniferous forests. He is very voracious: in a day he can peel off a tall spruce to get bark beetles. The name refers to the missing front finger. The green woodpecker, unlike its relatives, runs well on the ground in search of worms and caterpillars. He loves ant eggs, which is why he digs holes in anthills.
Pictured is a three-toed gray woodpecker
The birds' bright plumage and activity make them targets for captivity. About the woodpecker at home it is known that it is easily tamed, even flies to its name, but to create conditions for the bird, spacious enclosures with tree trunks are needed.
Communication with birds requires caution, as they can injure with a blow from their beak. If you manage to create an artificial corner of the forest for a woodpecker, then it will certainly become a favorite, communication with which will bring many pleasant moments.
The Great Spotted Woodpecker, or Spotted Woodpecker (lat. Dendrocoros major) is a fairly large bird, one of the most famous representatives family Woodpeckers and genus Spotted woodpeckers from the order Woodpeckers.
Description of the spotted woodpecker
A distinctive feature of the spotted woodpecker is its color.. Young birds, regardless of gender, have a very characteristic “red cap” in the parietal region. The Great Spotted Woodpecker species includes fourteen subspecies:
- D.m. Major;
- D.m. Brevirоstris;
- D.m. Kamtshaticus;
- D.m. Pinetorum;
- D.m. Hispanus;
- D.m. harterti Arrigoni;
- D.m. Canariensis;
- D.m. tanneri le Roi;
- D.m. Mauritanus;
- D.m. Numidus;
- D.m. Roelzami;
- D.m. Jaronicus;
- D.m. Cabanisi;
- D.m. Stresemanni.
In general, the subspecies taxonomy of the Great Spotted Woodpecker is not well developed today, so different authors distinguish between fourteen and twenty-six geographical races.
Appearance
The spotted woodpecker is similar in size to a thrush. The length of an adult bird of this species varies between 22-27 cm, with a wingspan of 42-47 cm and a weight of 60-100 g. The color of the bird is characterized by a predominance of white and black colors, which go well with the bright red or pinkish coloring of the undertail. All subspecies have a variegated appearance. Top part the heads, as well as the back area and rump, have black plumage with a bluish sheen.
The frontal area, cheeks, belly and shoulders are brownish-white in color.. In the shoulder area there are fairly large fields of white color with a black dorsal stripe between them. The flight feathers are black, with wide white spots, due to which five light transverse stripes are formed on the folded wings. The tail is black, except for a pair of outer white tail feathers. The bird's iris is brown or red, and its beak has a noticeable lead-black coloring. A pronounced black stripe begins at the base of the beak, which stretches to the side of the neck and neck. A black stripe borders the white cheek.
Males differ from females by the presence of a red transverse stripe on the back of the head. Juveniles are characterized by a red crown with red-black longitudinal streaks. Otherwise, young woodpeckers do not have significant differences in plumage color. The tail is medium in length, pointed and very rigid. Woodpeckers fly very well and quite quickly, but in most cases they prefer climbing tree trunks. Spotted woodpeckers use their wings only to fly from one plant to another.
Lifestyle and behavior
Great spotted woodpeckers are conspicuous and quite noisy birds, often inhabiting areas near human habitation. Most often, such birds lead a solitary lifestyle, and mass gatherings of woodpeckers are characteristic of the invasion of the nominative subspecies. Sedentary adults have an individual feeding area. The size of the feeding area can vary from two to twenty hectares, which depends on the typical characteristics of the forest zone and the number of conifers.
This is interesting! Before engaging in a fight with a stranger in its own feeding area, the owner takes a so-called confrontation pose, in which the bird’s beak opens slightly and the plumage on its head takes on a ruffled appearance.
Same-sex individuals during the period of active reproduction can fly into neighboring areas, which is accompanied by conflicts between birds. The appearance of strangers provokes fights, in which the birds strike each other with their beaks and wings. The approach of people does not always scare away the woodpecker, so the bird can simply climb up the trunk part closer to the top or fly to a higher branch.
How long do spotted woodpeckers live?
According to official data and observations, the average life expectancy of Great Spotted Woodpeckers in wildlife does not exceed ten years. The maximum known lifespan of a woodpecker was twelve years and eight months.
Range, habitats
The range of distribution of the spotted woodpecker covers a significant part of the Palaearctic. Birds of this species are found in Africa, Europe, the southern part of the Balkans and Asia Minor, as well as on the islands of the Mediterranean and Scandinavia. A large population lives on Sakhalin, the southern Kuril and Japanese islands.
The spotted woodpecker belongs to the category of extremely plastic species, so it can easily adapt to any type of biotopes with trees, including small wooded islands, gardens and parks. Bird population density varies:
- in the territory North Africa the bird prefers olive and poplar groves, cedar forests, pine forests, broad-leaved and mixed forests with the presence of cork oak;
- in Poland it most often inhabits alder-ash and oak-hornbeam groves, parks and forested areas with a large number of old trees;
- in the northwestern part of our country, the spotted woodpecker is numerous in various forest zones, including dry forests, swampy spruce forests, dark coniferous, mixed and broad-leaved forests;
- in the Urals and Siberia, preference is given to mixed forests and conifers with a predominance of pine;
- in the territory Far East birds of this species prefer foothill and mountain broad-leaved and cedar-broad-leaved forests;
- In Japan, spotted woodpeckers inhabit deciduous, coniferous and mixed forests.
This is interesting! As long-term observations show, young birds are the most prone to moving, and old woodpeckers extremely rarely leave their habitable nesting areas.
The total number of spotted woodpeckers within a biotope can decrease several times, and the process of population restoration takes several years.
Diet of Great Spotted Woodpeckers
The food supply of the spotted woodpecker is very diverse, and the bias towards the predominance of food of plant or animal origin directly depends on the season.
Males and females obtain food from different types territories. In the spring-summer period, spotted woodpeckers are very large quantities various insects are eaten, as well as their larvae, represented by:
- barbel;
- cereals;
- bark beetles;
- stags;
- leaf beetles;
- ladybugs;
- weevils;
- ground beetles;
- caterpillars;
- adult butterflies;
- horntails;
- aphids;
- coccids;
- ants.
Occasionally, woodpeckers eat crustaceans and molluscs. With the onset of late autumn, birds of this species can be found near people's homes, where the birds eat food in feeders or, in some cases, feed on carrion. Woodpeckers have also been observed to destroy the nests of songbirds, including pied flycatchers, common redstarts, tits and warblers.
Food is obtained from the trunks of trees and on the surface of the soil.. When insects are detected, the bird destroys the bark with strong blows of its beak or easily makes a deep funnel, after which the prey is removed with its tongue. Representatives of the Woodpecker family, as a rule, only chisel the wood of diseased and dried trees affected by pests. IN spring period birds feed on ground insects, destroying anthills, and also use fallen fruits or carrion as food.
In the autumn-winter period, food predominates in the woodpecker's diet. plant origin, rich in proteins, including seeds of various coniferous trees, acorns and nuts. For a bird of this species, a characteristic way of extracting nutritious seeds from pine and spruce cones is to use a kind of “forge.” The woodpecker picks a cone from a branch, after which it is carried in its beak and clamped inside a pre-prepared niche-anvil, which is used as natural cracks or independently hollowed out holes in the upper part of the trunk. Then the bird strikes swipe with its beak on the cone, and then the scales are pinched off and the seeds are extracted.
This is interesting! In early spring, when the number of insects is extremely limited and edible seeds are completely gone, woodpeckers break through the bark of deciduous trees and drink the sap.
In the territory occupied by one spotted woodpecker, there may be a little more than fifty of these special “anvils”, but most often the bird uses no more than four of them. By the end of the winter period, as a rule, a whole mountain of broken cones and scales accumulates under the tree.
Birds also eat seeds and nuts of plants such as hazel, beech and oak, hornbeam and almonds. When necessary, spotted woodpeckers feed on tender aspen bark And pine buds, gooseberry and currant pulp, cherries and plums, juniper and raspberries, buckthorn and ash.
Who hasn’t heard the ringing drumbeat of a woodpecker in the forest in the spring? These birds use their beaks to better signal their mating intentions than with regular song. This beak is an amazing device. Woodpeckers strike wood with it more than ten thousand times a day. The time of one blow reaches 50 milliseconds. To avoid getting a concussion from such loads, in the skull of these species of birds there is special system shock absorbers. The tongue of some woodpeckers protrudes about ten centimeters. Not a single larva can be saved from such a flexible, sticky and jagged probe at the end. The tendon base of the tongue is wrapped in a loop around the skull. Do not fold the entire long structure in half in the beak.
Bearded - Woodpecker squad, Bearded family
Variegated Barbet (Megalaima rafflesii). Habitat - Asia. Length 25 cm. Weight 50 g
Beards are the size of a sparrow; maximum from a thrush. They got their name from the thin feathers at the base of their beak. It gives the impression of a small beard.
Common whirligig (Jynx torquilla). Detachment Woodpeckers, family Woodpeckers. Habitats: Asia, Africa, Europe. Length 20 cm. Weight 35 g
The ancient Greeks believed that the whirligig was Yinx, the daughter of the god Pan, whom Zeus’s wife Hera turned into a bird because she contributed to the connection between her husband and Io, the daughter of the Argive king.
Woodpecker
Woodpecker - Woodpecker squad, Woodpecker family
Great spotted woodpecker (Dendrocopos major). Habitats: Asia, Africa, Europe. Length 25 cm. Weight up to 100 g
Nature has ideally adapted the woodpecker to an arboreal lifestyle. The bird has a very hard tail, on which it rests when climbing trees, the structure of the skull and beak allows it to gouge wood in search of food, a long flexible tongue, forked at the end in the form of a kind of spear, serves to pull out insects and their larvae from the gouged hole, and toes with sharp claws hold the woodpecker on a vertical trunk.
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