The story of the woodpecker bird. The woodpecker is a forest bird. Description, photo. Woodpecker - migratory bird or not

Probably, each of us met this amazing forest dweller while walking through the forest. And even if you did not manage to see the feathered one, it can be identified by the characteristic dry fractional knock. The bird's habitat is very extensive and includes almost all terrestrial regions where woodland is present. This is due to the fact that woodpeckers live exclusively in trees and never walk on the ground.

Forest bird woodpecker. Description, life cycle

For many years, scientists have been interested in the characteristics of the behavior and life cycle of birds. There were times when woodpeckers were classified as pests and deliberately destroyed. But it soon turned out that this amazing creature is a full-fledged doctor of forest flora, because it destroys thousands of larvae and harmful insects that can lead to the death of entire hectares of forest.

Varieties

The bird belongs to the woodpecker family, which includes more than 200 different species. A significant part of the representatives is found in the forest areas of North America, while in our regions you can see more than 10 species. Among the most famous are the following:

Description

A significant part of the woodpecker species is of medium size, with the exception of the tiny golden-fronted and lesser spotted, which weigh about 10 grams. The largest representatives, such as the zhelna, are able to recruit up to 600 grams of weight.

Externally, the bird looks very beautiful. The plumage may have black and white coloring, sometimes speckled. On the head is a characteristic red Riding Hood. The woodpecker is distinguished by a thick, strong and relatively long beak, with the help of which the bird easily hollows out a hollow in any breed. But in most cases, she prefers diseased trunks with soft wood.

The ability to climb trees perfectly is due to the presence of short legs with tenacious fingers. Most species have 4 toes on their feet, with the exception of the three-toed woodpecker. When searching for food, the bird tears off large pieces of bark from the tree, which helps other animals find food.

Habitat

As mentioned above, the feathered doctor of forest flora can be found almost anywhere where there is a forest. A significant part of the representatives of the species prefers a solitary lifestyle away from signs human activity. But in the absence of a food supply, the bird can change its place of residence and live in city parks or private gardens. For this reason, the woodpecker is found almost everywhere, except for the Subpolar regions and the Australian islands.

. He practically does not seasonal migrations and long flights. Plot of one adult occupies an area of ​​about two hectares. If there is not enough food, the feathered one can fly several kilometers from its home. After such a journey, he rarely returns. It is this fact that is the answer to the question: woodpecker - migrant or not?

Many species are omnivorous and freely tolerate aggressive climatic conditions, so there is simply no need to fly to warmer climes.

Features of life

Favorite pastime of all ornithologists and people who are fond of wildlife, is considered to be the observation of the behavior of birds in different conditions. If you look at the woodpecker, he does not show any high requirements for the conditions of detention. To exist normally, it is enough for a bird to have access to insects that are found under the bark of trees. The most pleasant habitat is the area near rivers, lakes and other forest water bodies. This is due to the fact that in such places there are ideal conditions for insect colonies to thrive.

In the rainy period, these pests begin to intensively destroy trees, so the woodpecker has many important tasks. In addition to the main task of searching for food, the woodpecker can hollow out the trunk to create a new nest. He does this almost every year. But small species of woodpecker, such as the wryneck, prefer the nests of other birds, because their beak is not strong enough.

A unique feature of all woodpeckers is the ability to move incredibly quickly through the trees. Even tiny bird cubs begin their first independent steps not in flight, but while climbing the trunk. By nature, the bird has short legs with tenacious fingers.

It is important to note that the life cycle of a bird remains the same throughout the year. In a cold winter, you can hear how, somewhere in the forest, a local doctor is hammering a trunk, making a loud sound.

What does woodpecker eat

The main condition for the stay of birds in our regions cold winter is the abundance of food. The non-migratory group includes only those individuals that are omnivorous and do not impose high requirements on the choice of diet. In addition to the main food in the form of insects, woodpeckers do not refuse coniferous seeds, nuts and even acorns.

To get a nutritious larva from under the bark, the bird uses not only a strong beak, but also a surprisingly dexterous tongue. Its length often exceeds the length of the beak itself, and there are sharp teeth at the tip. In one season, the forest healer destroys a colossal number of harmful insects that cause great damage to the local flora. Woodpeckers devour almost all insects that come across their eyes. It's about about:

• termites;
• caterpillars;
• ants:

The bird does not refuse tasty snails. In the absence of such food in the cold season, the woodpecker can also eat berries, and seeds different trees. If severe hunger sets in, the bird migrates to cities and towns, where the food supply is much wider.

Interesting features of the woodpecker:

Based on the foregoing, we can say with confidence that the woodpecker is one of the most unique, interesting beautiful birds that live in our forests, being their decoration.

And even though for many years the woodpecker was considered a pest and even mass-destroyed until the moment when scientists determined that the bird only hammers old, rotten and diseased trees. It is they who save the flora from many diseases, and also equip dwellings for other birds, leaving their nests.

They also tear off whole pieces of bark and open passages to insects and other birds.

How many years does a woodpecker live? From 5 to 11 years old. The most common species - Motley - lives 11 years.

Woodpecker migratory bird or not

No, he leads sedentary life. Listen in the winter in the park, you will definitely hear the sound of this beautiful, noble bird - the doctor of the forest.

Great Spotted (Dendrocopos major)

This type is the most popular. His knock can be heard even in the city park. The size is medium, the color is black and white, and the back of the head in young individuals is bright red.

Nesting: where and how?

Prefers aspens for nesting. Egg clutch appears in spring and consists of 4-6 eggs.

The Spotted Woodpecker has a thrifty manner. All spring he can collect cones to stock up on seeds for the winter.

White-winged (Dendrocopos leucopterus)

In the coloring of the bird, white is the leader, and its size is slightly smaller than average. On the back of the head there is a red plumage.

reproduction

Nesting begins in early March. He is accompanied by loud calls of females.

What does a woodpecker eat? Insects from the surface of trees, in rare cases - can search for food on the ground.

The female differs from the male in the absence of red plumage on the back of the head. In the female it is black.

White-backed (Dendrocopos leucotos)

If we talk about coloring, then the name speaks for itself. This individual has a white back and a pink undertail.

It feeds on insects, nuts and acorns, but is not capable of hollowing cones because of a beak less developed than, for example, that of the Spotted Woodpecker.

Nesting begins in spring, and at the end of June, the first flight of White-backed woodpecker chicks can be observed.

Large sharp-winged (Dendrocopos nanus)

The individual differs from others in white spots on the back in the form of rhombuses and in large size. On the back of the head it has a bright red plumage.

Insects that the woodpecker eats are found on the bark and under the bark. To get the caterpillar, it tears off the bark with its beak. Before eating, it hits the caterpillar several times with its beak to kill it.

About nesting!

The nature of nesting of this species is practically not studied. This is due to its trill, which is relatively quieter than that of other woodpeckers. This species is considered the most secretive in nature.

Vertineck (Jynx torquilla)

A very small bird the size of a sparrow. The coloring is such that it merges with the tree trunk. It has a very weak beak and a soft tail.

The wryneck feeds on ants and their larvae. It cannot peck bark because of its weak beak.

For a dwelling, he chooses ready-made hollows of trees, and sometimes settles right in the stumps. The clutch appears in May-June and consists of 7-12 eggs, which are oblong in shape.

Zhelna (Dryocopus martius)

A large bird the size of a crow, the color of which is matte black. The male has a bright red nape, while the female is slightly paler.

Zhelna feeds on ants and insects, which it takes out from under the bark with its beak.

It nests high above the ground in hollows of trees, which it hollows out by itself. The entrance to the dwelling has a rectangular shape. The clutch appears in April-May and has up to 5 eggs.

Green (Picus viridis)

Woodpecker photo bird - beauty

A medium-sized bird with a color of several shades of light green. The head is bright red, whose shape resembles a helmet.

It feeds mainly on ants and their pupae. To do this, it can rummage in an anthill right on the ground for about an hour.

The dwelling chooses in the hollows of deciduous trees. In April-June, it incubates from 3 to 6 eggs.

In rare cases, the Green Woodpecker can be seen in the city park.

Gray-haired (Picus canus)

An individual of small size. The color of the back is light green, and the head and front are light gray. Males have red plumage on their foreheads.

The lifestyle and nesting habits are the same as those of the Green Woodpecker.

It has a loud and nasal cry.

Syrian (Dendrocopos syriacus)

The color of this individual is black- white color. The undertail is bright red. There is a pink stripe on the chest.

Feeds on insects, nuts and seeds. In search of food, it does not move away from the nest more than 100 meters. He likes to eat various berries, which he picks right on the fly.

The male is engaged in the construction of the dwelling, in rare cases, the female can help him. Both the female and the male take turns incubating the eggs.

Three-toed (Picoides tridactylus)

Bird of medium size, color - black and white. The top of the head of the male is light- yellow color, while the female is off-white. A distinctive feature of this individual is three fingers on each paw.

The woodpecker feeds on insects, mainly bark beetles. Can scrape the bark of a tree in search of clusters of larvae.

Rather secretive and silent bird. Its nest is located in the hollows of mainly coniferous trees. The clutch appears in May-June in the amount of 3-6 eggs.

Scaly (Picus squamatus)

A light green bird with black and white markings on the edges of the feathers. The beak is yellow. This species is considered endangered and is listed in the Red Book. The reason for the disappearance is deforestation for agricultural purposes.

Lifestyle and nesting habits are little studied. What the woodpecker eats is also little known. There are suggestions that the way of life of the Scaled Woodpecker is similar to the way of life of the Green.

Where do woodpeckers winter

To say that woodpeckers are migratory birds is impossible. These birds prefer to live where they were born and raised. They stock up on food for the winter and insulate their homes. natural materials. Only some of the species can leave their native forest in severe frosts in order to move closer to people for a while.

Who has not heard the sonorous drumming of a woodpecker in the forest in the spring. With their beaks, these birds are better at signaling their mating intentions than with the help of an ordinary song. This beak is an amazing device. Woodpeckers beat them on wood more than ten thousand times a day. The time of one hit reaches 50 milliseconds. In order not to get a concussion from such loads, in the skull of these species of birds there is a special system of shock absorbers. The tongue of some woodpeckers protrudes ten centimeters. Not a single larva will escape from such a flexible, sticky and jagged at the end of the probe. The tendon base of the tongue loops around the skull. Do not fold the entire long structure in half in the beak.

Bearded - Woodpecker detachment, Bearded family

Variegated beard (Megalaima rafflesii). Habitat - Asia. Length 25 cm. Weight 50 g

Sparrow-sized beards; maximum from a thrush. They got their name due to the thin feathers at the base of the beak. It gives the impression of a small beard.

Common wryneck (Jynx torquilla). Woodpecker squad, Woodpecker family. Habitats - Asia, Africa, Europe. Length 20 cm. Weight 35 g

The ancient Greeks believed that the wryneck is Yinx, the daughter of the god Pan, whom the wife of Zeus Hera turned into a bird, because she contributed to the connection between her husband and Io, the daughter of the king of Argos.

Woodpecker

Woodpecker - Woodpecker detachment, 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 tree image life. The bird has a very hard tail, on which it relies when climbing trees, the structure of the skull and beak allow you to hollow wood in search of food, a long flexible tongue, forked at the end in the form of a kind of spear, serves to pull insects and their larvae out of a hollowed hole, and toes with sharp claws hold the woodpecker on a vertical trunk.

Great spotted woodpecker

Great spotted woodpecker or spotted woodpecker (lat. Dendrocopos major) is a species of birds of the woodpecker order, woodpecker family, motley woodpecker genus.

The modern classification includes 14 subspecies of the great spotted woodpecker, whose representatives differ in the size of the body and beak, as well as in the shades of the main color of the plumage.

What does a spotted woodpecker look like?

The size of the spotted woodpecker is like that of a thrush: the body length of an adult is 22-27 cm, with a weight of 60 to 100 g. The main color of the plumage is black and white in various shades. The head, back and rump are black with a blue tint, the undertail is red or pink. The shoulders, belly, as well as the forehead and cheeks, depending on the range, are painted white, brownish-white or dark brown. Large white areas stand out on the shoulders of the bird, separated by a black dorsal stripe. Black flight feathers are covered with white spots, forming 5 light stripes on the wing. The light cheeks of the woodpecker are bordered by black "mustache".

Males have a red transverse stripe on the back of the head - the only sexual difference motley woodpeckers. Juveniles are colored like adults, but are distinguished by a red crown interspersed with narrow, black stripes.

Woodpeckers have red or brown eyes. A strong, sharp beak is lead-black in color, legs are dark brown.

Distinctive feature woodpecker is a particularly hard, sharp tail, which birds use as a support when moving along vertical surfaces. And also the presence of a long (up to 4 cm), sticky tongue, with which woodpeckers extract prey from the narrowest holes.

The woodpecker's tongue is visible in the photo.

Great spotted woodpecker male.
Great spotted woodpecker.

Great spotted woodpecker in profile.
Great spotted woodpecker.
Great spotted woodpecker.
Great spotted woodpecker.
Great spotted woodpecker.

Where do woodpeckers live

The spotted woodpecker is one of the most numerous and widespread bird species that lives in most European countries, northwest Africa and Asia Minor.

In most of the range, woodpeckers lead a sedentary lifestyle, only at the northern borders in famine years they wander to other regions.

Woodpeckers are unpretentious and adapt to any landscape where trees grow. On European territory, they are found in dry and swampy forests - mixed, coniferous and deciduous. Often settled in city parks and cemeteries. inhabitants African continent prefer cedar forests, olive groves and cork oak forests. Populations of Asian countries inhabit thickets of rhododendron and broadleaf forests foothill regions. In atypical habitats, for example, in the tundra, woodpeckers appear exclusively in search of food.

Male great spotted woodpecker.
Great spotted woodpecker.
Woodpecker in flight.
Woodpecker in flight.

What do woodpeckers eat?

In spring and summer, insects and their larvae form the basis of the diet. Beetles (including tree beetles): bark beetles, leaf beetles, stag beetles, ground beetles, weevils. Various butterflies and caterpillars of woodworms, glassworts, whites, as well as aphids, scale insects and many types of ants. Sometimes shellfish and crustaceans are added to the menu.

On occasion, woodpeckers do not disdain carrion (like tits) and can ruin the nests of small bird species (the same tits or finches) and can even ruin the nests of their relatives by eating eggs and chicks. In summer, the pulp of currants, raspberries, gooseberries is readily consumed. Residents of cities often feed on garbage dumps.

In winter, the diet is dominated by vegetable feed- acorns, nuts and seeds of conifers, as well as aspen bark. Woodpeckers extract seeds from cones using the "forge": they clamp the cone in a previously prepared "anvil" - splitting the wood and pulling out the seeds with powerful blows of the beak. In the spring, at the beginning of sap flow, woodpeckers pierce the bark of trees and drink the juice.

Woodpecker with a seed in its beak.
Woodpecker with a butterfly in its beak.
Woodpecker with prey.
Woodpecker and tit at the feeder.

Woodpecker breeding

Woodpeckers are monogamous and a couple that breaks up after breeding often reunites for next year. The mating season, depending on the range, lasts from late December to mid-May. During the breeding season, the drumming and calls of woodpeckers can be heard up to 1.5 km away. Males arrange mating dances and flights that end in mating.

The male himself chooses a place for the nest - a tree with soft wood (alder, birch, larch) and begins to hollow out a hollow at a height of up to 8 m. The work takes 2 weeks, sometimes the female replaces the male. The result is a hollow, 25-35 cm deep and up to 12 cm in diameter, sometimes with a visor of tinder fungus.

At the end of spring, the female lays 5-7, rarely 4-8 pure white, glossy eggs. Incubation at night, and most of the day the male is engaged. Incubation period lasts 10-13 days, after which naked and blind chicks are born.

The offspring are fed by both parents, making about 300 feedings per day. After 10 days, the strengthened chicks meet their parents at the entrance to the hollow, and after another 10-13 days they begin to fly out of the nest. For three weeks, the brood stays nearby, at first still eating at the expense of their parents, and then leaves their native territory.

On average, woodpeckers live for about 9 years, in exceptional cases 2-3 years more.

A female woodpecker at the nest.

Read more:

Order Woodpeckers / Picariae

Woodpeckers are birds of small and medium size: the smallest are smaller than a sparrow, the largest are the size of a crow. Appearance and coloration of woodpeckers are quite different. Some species have a monochromatic brownish coloration, others have a variegated, often quite bright plumage. The wings are blunt, usually consisting of 10-11 primary flight feathers. The tail often consists of 10-12 helmsmen. Sexual dimorphism is weakly expressed; chicks are colored similarly to adults. The legs of woodpeckers are usually four-toed, short, but strong, well adapted to climbing the trunk and branches of trees: in most species, 2 fingers are turned forward, 2 back. The claws are hooked, which helps the bird to easily stay on the trees. All woodpeckers are diurnal, the vast majority are forest birds. They begin to breed at the age of about a year, forming pairs during the nesting period. Woodpeckers nest in hollows or burrows. The number of eggs in a clutch varies greatly. More often, the clutch consists of 2-12 single-colored white eggs, which are laid directly on the bottom of the nest; nest litter is usually absent. Both the male and the female (but more than the female) incubate the clutch for about 2 weeks. The chicks hatch blind and in the vast majority of species are naked (without downy attire). After leaving the nest, the chicks hold on for some time. family together, but soon the brood disintegrates. Most woodpeckers are quarrelsome birds: they can be found in groups only in places rich in food. Woodpeckers lead a sedentary lifestyle, but in autumn many species wander, flying to places where they did not nest. Further away from their nesting sites, they fly into winter time. Almost all woodpeckers feed on insects, rarely eat plant foods. Many species, especially those found in temperate zone switch in winter to feed on tree seeds. Some species consume exclusively plant foods. By exterminating insects, many of which damage trees and shrubs, woodpeckers bring certain benefits to forestry. In addition, most woodpecker-like nests are hollowed out, and other hollow-nesting birds subsequently willingly settle in them, the vast majority of which are insectivorous birds useful for forestry. Woodpeckers are common in all forests the globe, except Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea and Madagascar; there are especially many of them in South America. This order includes 380 species, united in 2 suborders: jacamars (Galbulae) and woodpeckers proper (Pici). Birds from the jacamar suborder are characterized by an elongated body, a long, almost awl-shaped beak with bristles at the base, short wings, a long stepped tail and soft fluffy plumage with a golden sheen, for which the jacamar is also called glitter tyanki. These birds are widespread in Central and South America. Jacamars are divided into 2 families: chatterboxes (Galbulidae) and powder puffs (Bucconidae). The suborder of the woodpeckers proper includes outwardly very different birds, characterized by a strong, usually massive beak and a dense, stocky body with a medium-sized tail. These birds are distributed in America, Africa, Europe and Asia, almost everywhere where tree and shrub vegetation is found. Actually woodpeckers are divided into 4 families.

white-billed woodpecker / Campephilus principalis

The white-billed woodpecker is found in the southeast of North America, where it inhabits vast expanses of swampy forests. The coloration of this woodpecker is strict. The main color of its plumage is deep black, from the back of the head on the sides of the neck there are two wide white stripes that connect on the back, so the middle of the back is also white. The wing, with the exception of the shoulder feathers and the outer edge of the three outer primaries, is white. On the back of the head there is a large beautiful crest of elongated feathers - the male is bright red, the female is black. The eyes are bright yellow and shiny, the legs are lead-gray, the beak is light, ivory. For the color of the beak, this woodpecker got its name.The contours of the body of the white-billed woodpecker are also remarkable: its neck is thin, making the head seem disproportionately large.

white-billed woodpecker

P about the size, this is a very large woodpecker: the length of the bird exceeds 0.5 m. White-billed woodpeckers live in pairs, which probably do not break up all their lives. Both birds of a pair are always together, but even at a distance it is not difficult to distinguish them: the female is noisier, but more careful than the male. The breeding season starts in March. White-billed woodpeckers are very cautious and stay in the most secluded corners of the forest during the nesting period. The hollow is always arranged in the trunk of a living tree, usually in oak, always at a considerable height; often the inlet of the hollow is located under big bough or a branch that protects against water flowing into the hollow when it rains. Both the male and the female take part in hollowing out the hollow. The clutch consists of 5-7 pure white eggs placed directly on the bottom of the hollow. In the southern regions of the range, these birds breed chicks twice a season, in the north they have only one clutch. In its habits, the white-billed woodpecker is somewhat different from other woodpeckers. His flight is extremely beautiful and, like other woodpeckers, wavy. But, flying from one tree to another, the bird first climbs to the top of the tree on which it was, and, flying from it, does not flap its wings, but, opening them, plans down; she describes a smooth arc, admiring the beauty of her plumage to the most demanding artist. This woodpecker does not like to fly long distances and prefers to climb the trunk and branches of trees and jump from one closely standing tree to another. Climbing a tree, the white-billed woodpecker incessantly utters a sonorous, clear and pleasant cry “pet-pet-pet”. He repeats this three-syllable cry so often that one has to doubt whether the bird is silent for even a few minutes during the day. His voice can be heard from miles away. The woodpecker extracts its food by carefully examining the trunks and large branches of trees. Starting at the bottom of the tree and climbing in a spiraling line around the trunk, the bird inspects the cracks and crevices in the bark and pecks at them, looking for insects. The strength of this bird is very great: with one blow of its beak, it beats off pieces of bark and chips up to 17-20 cm in length, and when it finds a shrunken, insect-infested tree, it knocks the bark off 2-3 m2 of the trunk surface in a few hours and thus in 2-3 days completely sands the wood. The prey of white-billed woodpeckers most often become larvae, pupae and adults of beetles living in the bark and wood, as well as open-living insects living on the surface of trunks. At the end of summer and in autumn, these birds eat berries and fruits of wild trees. These beautiful birds are often destroyed by people for their extremely beautiful head with a bright tuft and ivory beak. Travelers, greedy for various "reminders", seek to acquire the head of a white-billed woodpecker as an exotic souvenir from those places where this bird forms an integral part of the landscape of terrible and at the same time wonderful swamps. At present, the white-billed woodpecker is a very rare bird: it has already disappeared from most of its range.

acorn woodpecker / Melanerpes formicivorus

The acorn woodpecker makes huge stocks. In autumn, he hollows out in the trunks and large branches of oaks, eucalyptus, pines, sycamores, and even in telegraph poles and walls of wooden houses, many thousands of small potholes - cells, into each of which he drives an acorn tightly. The size of such pantries is impressive: in the mountain forest of California, they counted 20 thousand acorns driven by a woodpecker into the bark of a sycamore tree, and about 50 thousand acorns were found in the bark of another tree - pine trees! These woodpeckers are also remarkable in that they usually live in groups of 3-12 birds all year round. Each such group occupies a rather large territory, from which outsiders are expelled. All members of the group take part in the defense of this territory; all of them participate in the storage of acorns and collectively use their reserves.

acorn woodpecker

AT In the spring, the group does not split into pairs; all females of the group lay their eggs in one common nest. All members of the group take part in the incubation of the clutch and in the feeding of the chicks. However, it is not uncommon (in some years and in some places) to meet pairs of birds leading a typically monogamous lifestyle, but in most cases this is a temporary phenomenon.

green woodpecker / Picus virdis

The green woodpecker is very beautiful bird. The dorsal side and wings are yellowish-olive, the uppertail is brilliant yellow, the primary feathers are brown, the tail is brownish-black with grayish transverse stripes. The top of the head, the back of the head and the stripe running from the lower jaw to the neck are carmine red, the forehead, space around the eyes and cheeks are black. The ears, throat and goiter are whitish, the rest of the ventral side of the body is pale green with dark streaks. In terms of body shape, this woodpecker resembles a large motley woodpecker, but is larger than it: the length of a green woodpecker is 35-37 cm, weight is up to 250 g.The green woodpecker lives in deciduous and clarified mixed forests of Europe east to the Volga, in Western Asia (except for its northeastern regions) and in the Caucasus.

green woodpecker

O It lives best where open spaces alternate with forests and where there are many trees of different ages. This is very careful birds- individual couples settle far from each other, and therefore it is not easy to meet them. However, during the nesting period, birds give out their presence loud cries: the female and the male call alternately all day long. The hollows of the bird are hollowed out mainly in decaying trees: old aspens, sedge, willows. Clutch, which occurs in most of the range in May (which is quite late for woodpeckers), consists of 5-9 shiny white eggs. Both the male and the female take part in their incubation, as well as in feeding the chicks and hollowing out the hollow. The green woodpecker feeds on various insects, which it collects on tree trunks. His favorite food is ants, which he eats in huge quantities. To catch them, the woodpecker willingly descends to the ground and, in search of ant pupae - “ant eggs”, breaks deep passages inside the anthills.

earthen woodpecker / Gecolaptes olivaceus

The earthen woodpecker is a bird of medium size for woodpeckers, the body length of which is about 25 cm. It is painted very modestly: its plumage is predominantly olive-brown with yellowish-brown stems of the flight feathers and orange-brown tail feathers. The rump and ventral side of the body with an admixture of red, the head is gray. This woodpecker is widespread in South Africa, where it lives in treeless areas, inhabiting outcrops of mountain slopes and high river banks or slopes of ravines. In terms of lifestyle, this original woodpecker is an amazing example of adaptation to the conditions of an area unusual for woodpeckers.As a rule, the observer sees the bird sitting on some large boulder or flying low above the ground from one rocky outcrop to another.

earthen woodpecker

L you can occasionally see the earthen woodpecker in a dense bush. On the ground, he moves by jumping. This is why it is called an earthen woodpecker because it does not hammer trees, but breaks through its passages in steep river banks, on hill slopes and along the slopes of ravines, as well as in the walls of earthen buildings, both in search of food and for the construction of a dwelling in which it displays chicks. This dwelling is a hole about a meter long, at the end of which narrow vaults are distributed to the sides and up, forming a small cave. The bottom of the bird cave is usually lined with shreds of animal hair. Here, during the breeding season, birds lay 3-5 pure white eggs. Most During their life, these woodpeckers dig in the ground in search of food, they also look for food on the ground, on the rocky walls of abandoned buildings and on the sheer walls of rocks. Their food consists of insects and their larvae, as well as worms, spiders and some other invertebrates.

Golden Woodpecker / Colaptes auratus

golden woodpecker small bird, whose body length is about 27 cm. The color of this woodpecker is quite bright and beautiful. The dorsal side of the body is clay-brown with black transverse streaks and white uppertail, the ventral side is white with black spots. The head is gray, surrounded by a red stripe, on the goiter there is a black stripe of a crescent shape. The trunks of the flight and tail feathers, as well as the underside of the wings, are golden yellow. During the flight, the woodpecker often flaps its wings. Each time he waves them, his golden feathers flash brightly against the blue sky. The golden woodpecker is widespread in North America, where it inhabits open plains. Nests are arranged in hollows. Its meat is highly valued by many hunters and is often served at the table.

golden woodpecker

red-headed woodpecker/ Melanerpes erythrocephalus

The red-headed woodpecker is a small bird for woodpeckers: its body length is about 23 cm. Its body is dense, its head is large, its neck is short, and its tail is rounded. This woodpecker has a bright red head and neck, while the back, wings and tail are black, and the ventral side is white. The red-headed woodpecker is one of the most common birds in North America. Here, these woodpeckers keep in sparse forests, often flying out to feed on the edges and flying, especially in the summer-autumn period, into settlements. In the spring, starting to breed, birds very rarely hollow out a new hollow; usually they find and clear, and sometimes deepen the old.This hollow is always placed in a shriveled tree with rotting wood.

red-headed woodpecker

H Often on such a tree several hollows are hollowed out, but only one is occupied. In healthy green trees, these woodpeckers cannot hollow out hollows for themselves. The disposition of the red-headed woodpecker is very cheerful and mischievous. Sitting somewhere on a fence post near a field or road and seeing a passing person, the woodpecker slowly moves to the opposite side of the post from the person, from behind which he looks out from time to time, as if trying to guess the intentions of the approaching one. If a person passes by, then the woodpecker, deftly jumping to the top of the column, begins to drum on it with his beak, as if rejoicing that he managed to remain unnoticed by the person. If a person approaches him, then the woodpecker flies to the next post, then to the next one and starts drumming on it, as if teasing the person and inviting him to play hide and seek. Often these restless birds also appear near houses: they climb on them, knock on the roofs with their beaks. They cause a lot of trouble when bread and berries and fruits ripen in the gardens. These birds, arriving in large flocks, eat berries and fruits in huge quantities, completely devastating entire gardens. Extremely curious red-headed woodpeckers deal with apples. The bird sticks its beak into the apple with all its might and, clinging to the branch with its paws, plucks the fruit planted on its beak, and then, with this burden, clumsily flies to the nearest fence. Sitting on a post, the woodpecker breaks the apple into pieces and eats it. Birds produce even greater devastation in grain fields, not only eating ripened grains, but also breaking stems and trampling ears into the ground. Finally, these birds are also capable of predatory: they look for nests of small birds, and often artificial nests, and drink the eggs found in them. At times they even attack dovecotes. Having satisfied their hunger, red-headed woodpeckers gather in small flocks and, sitting on the branches of a dried tree, begin a kind of hunting for flying insects from here. Birds rush at them from a distance of 4-6 m, make very deft turns in the air, grab insects and, uttering joyful cries, return to their original place. Watching this competition from the outside is extremely pleasant: making complex pirouettes and turns, the birds demonstrate all the beauty of their bright plumage. Red-headed woodpeckers feed on seeds and grains of various plants, fruits, berries and insects. Because of the damage that red-headed woodpeckers cause to fields and gardens, locals ruthlessly exterminate them in huge numbers.

Copper Woodpecker / Colaptes mexicanus

The area in which the copper woodpecker lives is a dry desert overgrown with pale green undersized agaves. Somewhere among the different types of artichokes poking through White sand, lonely growing large yucca. E that area, lifeless for most of the year, makes a depressing impression on anyone traveling through it. And the more unexpected and joyful for the traveler is the meeting with flocks of copper woodpeckers. Looking closely at the flocks of these birds, you can see that the woodpeckers all the time fly up to the dried flower-bearing stems of the agaves, peck them for a while, then fly to the trunk of the yucca, which is also pecked, after which they again fly to the agave, etc. They peck out this from dried up flowering stems agave acorns, which at one time were placed there by them. An interesting custom of the copper woodpecker is to make pantries in the dried stalks of agaves, where he hides acorns. To do this, the woodpecker punches a small rounded hole in the lower part of the dried agave stem, reaching the cavity inside the stem, and pushes the acorns into it until it fills that part of the cavity that is below the hole. Then, a little higher than the first, he punches a second hole, through which he fills with acorns a part of the cavity located between these holes, etc. The cavity inside the stem is narrow, and the woodpecker usually has to expend considerable effort pushing the acorns down. Sometimes, therefore, only one acorn is laid in each hole, but in this case there are a lot of holes in the agave stem, behind each of them there is an acorn. Splitting the stem lengthwise, you can see that it is filled with a whole column of acorns. The copper woodpecker spends a lot of time and effort on storing acorns for future use, but, perhaps, not less labor he has to use it to collect acorns: in the desert area where agaves grow, there are no oaks, and therefore woodpeckers have to fly for acorns for many kilometers to the slopes of the nearest mountains. However, as compensation for such hard work, copper woodpeckers can live in hot weather in this sun-scorched desert, eating exclusively acorns stored for this occasion. The way they are eaten is also amazing. Taking out an acorn, the woodpecker clamps it into a hole specially hollowed out for this purpose in the bark of a dry yucca trunk. The woodpecker easily breaks the acorn shell with its beak blows, and eats the nucleolus. Thus, during the dry season, these birds gather in places overgrown with agaves, where their warehouses are located, and when it rains, they scatter through the valleys, where they feed on insects, a significant part of which are ants pecked on the ground.

sharp-winged woodpecker / Jungipicus kizuki

The sharp-winged woodpecker is a small, sparrow-sized bird: it weighs only 19-25 g. Its color is variegated. Back, loin and wings in alternating black and white transverse stripes. The head from above and from the sides, as well as the back of the neck are brownish-gray. The sides of the neck are white, delimited from below by black stripes. From beak through eye to white spot goes on the neck white stripe. The goiter and throat are white below, the rest of the ventral side of the body is brownish with frequent dark longitudinal streaks. The middle pairs of tail feathers are black, the rest are striped in black and white. The male differs from the female in the presence of a few red feathers on the sides of the back of the head.

sharp-winged woodpecker

X a characteristic feature of this bird (as well as the whole genus of sharp-winged woodpeckers) is the presence of wings that are sharper than those of other woodpeckers. The sharp-winged woodpecker is widespread in the northeastern provinces of China, on the Korean Peninsula, on the Japanese and southern Kuril Islands ah, on Sakhalin and in the Ussuri region. It is found in a variety of forest stands from impenetrable thickets of hot valleys to subalpine forests. During nesting time, birds prefer to stay in plantations of soft tree species (velvet, linden, poplar, etc.), where it is easier for them to hollow out or find a hollow for themselves. Usually these woodpeckers nest in hollows of horizontal boughs or tree branches. Masonry occurs in May. Outside the breeding season, sharp-winged woodpeckers are usually found in flocks of tits, with which they carefully examine the branches, leaves and needles of trees and shrubs in search of insects. During the gathering of food, this woodpecker can often be found climbing the stems of thick herbaceous plants, where the bird sometimes hollows out the stems, extracting insects and their larvae living in the tissues of plants, pecking out seeds that have not yet crumbled.

pampas woodpecker / Colaptes agricola

The pampas woodpecker is a beautiful, brightly colored bird. Her body is black, the sides of the head, as well as the sides and front of the neck are golden yellow, the throat is white. The stems of the flight feathers are golden yellow, the tail feathers are black, and the lining of the wings is golden ocher. The male and female differ in the color of their whiskers, which are red in the male and black in the female. The pampas woodpecker is a large bird with relatively long legs and a tail less stiff than other woodpeckers. A soft tail is a poor support when climbing a vertical surface, and therefore this woodpecker usually sits on branches horizontally, across the branch, and climbs along the trunk only occasionally.This peculiar bird is widespread in the pampas of South America.

pampas woodpecker

During the breeding season, the male and female dig a hole in a steep bank of a river or in a steep slope, where the female lays her eggs. Sometimes, when there are no such slopes and cliffs in which birds can dig a hole, some one is selected separately. standing tree with very soft wood, where woodpeckers gouge their hollow. These birds feed by walking on the ground and pecking at the invertebrates encountered. Sometimes they collect openly living insects on rare trees and bushes in the pampas. Occasionally, using their legs and beak, they dig worms and insect larvae out of the ground.

Great spotted woodpecker / Dendrocopos major

The great spotted woodpecker is a beautiful, indeed very colorful bird. Its predominant color consists of a combination of black and white tones. The top of the head and neck, the dorsal side and undertail are blue-black, the shoulders, cheeks, sides of the neck are white, the belly is off-white, the undertail is light red. The flight feathers are black with white spots forming white transverse stripes on the black background of the folded wing. The tail is black, except for the two outer tail feathers, which are white. The eyes are brownish-red, the beak is lead-black, the legs are dark brown. The male differs from the female by a red spot on the crown. Young birds are similar in color to adults, but they have a red spot on their forehead. The tail of a large spotted woodpecker is of medium length, pointed and very hard, since it serves mainly as a support when the bird climbs a tree trunk.

Great spotted woodpecker

H How important this supporting role of the tail is can be judged by the fact that during the period before the next molt, the tail feathers, being erased, are shortened by 10 mm or more! But the total length of the tail is 100 mm. The Great Spotted Woodpecker is a medium-sized bird: its body length is 23-26 cm, its weight is about 100 g. This woodpecker lives in the forests of North Africa (northern Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia), in Europe and on adjacent islands, in the Caucasus, in Asia Minor, in Siberia (except for the northern regions of the taiga) and Primorye, as well as in Kamchatka, Sakhalin, the Japanese and Kuril Islands and on the Korean Peninsula. The woodpecker leads a sedentary lifestyle, but in cold weather it migrates. In the spring (February, March, April), woodpeckers become especially noisy and agile. Males often make a "trill". Sitting on the trunk, the male quickly strikes the dry knot with his beak, and the bough vibrating under these blows emits a kind of trill - “drum roll”, something like “tra-ta-ta ...”. This trill replaces the song of the great spotted woodpecker. You can hear it far away even in the dense forest. A female flies to this “song”, and a pair is formed. The formed pair zealously defends its nesting site, driving out all other woodpeckers from it. Somewhere in the middle of this area, the birds make their nest. For its device, a tree with soft or decaying wood is selected. The most commonly used is aspen, less often alder, even more rarely birch, oak and other species with hard wood. Usually on the trunk, at a height of 2-8 m from the ground - often under the cap of a tinder fungus, woodpeckers hollow out a hollow for themselves. Alternately changing, the male and female tirelessly hammer on the tree, splitting off pieces of wood 2-4 cm long, which are immediately thrown down. On last year's dried grass, and if the spring is late, on the snow near the tree trunk, you can see fresh light chips, through which you can easily find a freshly hollowed out hollow. The hollow has a depth of 28-35 cm, the inlet - notch has a diameter of 5-5.6 cm. At the end of April - in May, eggs are laid. The clutch usually consists of 5-7 shiny white eggs. Eggs are laid directly on the bottom of the hollow; often heavily crushed pieces of wood serve as litter. The eggs are incubated by both the male and the female alternately for 12-13 days. Chicks hatch blind and completely helpless, but with a well-developed calcaneal callus. The first days of life they sit quietly, the grown chicks scream loudly, demanding food. By this call, heard for 80-100 m, you can easily find their nest. Both adult birds take part in feeding the chicks. The chicks are very voracious, and the parents arrive at the nest with food every 2-4 minutes. The female usually feeds the chicks more often than the male. During the day, both adult birds bring food to the nest up to 300 times. Naturally, to collect a huge number of insects necessary for feeding the chicks, is possible only from a large area of ​​the forest. It is not surprising, therefore, that the hunting area of ​​a pair of woodpeckers occupies about 15 hectares. The chicks spend three weeks in the nest. The first 25-30 days after leaving the nest, the entire brood keeps together, and old birds first feed young, already well-flying birds. After some time, the young move on to independent living and begin to roam widely. Woodpeckers fly well and quickly, describing a smooth arc in the air: flapping its wings several times, the bird rises to the top of the arc, then folds its wings and swiftly, like a thrown spear, flies forward, quickly losing height, then flaps its wings again, etc. However, in all cases, they prefer to climb the trunk of a tree, using their wings only to fly to a neighboring tree. Even when the bird is in danger, it is in no hurry to fly away. Noticing, for example, the approach of a person, the woodpecker, as if unintentionally, without betraying the fact that he noticed danger, crawls, continuing to look for something in the bumps of the bark, to the opposite side of the trunk and, climbing up the trunk, only occasionally looks out from behind it. as if casually watching a person. If you try to go around the tree, the bird will again move so that there is a trunk between it and the person. If a person tries to approach the bird, it will fly to a nearby tree, expressing its displeasure with a loud, sharp cry. The woodpecker's voice is carried far through the forest and resembles something like a jerky "boom", repeated either separately or several times in a row, when the bird is worried. Woodpeckers spend most of their time looking for food. In summer and early autumn, woodpeckers can easily be observed on a tree trunk. Usually, the bird sits on the trunk at the base of the tree and begins to jump up, making spiral turns around the trunk. Climbing up, she carefully examines every crack, every bump in the bark. If a bird notices something on thick branches, then it examines them as well, usually from below, hanging from the branch and again leaning on its tail. Having thus examined the trunk and large side branches to a height of 12-16 m, and sometimes even higher, the woodpecker flies to another tree. If, while examining a tree, a woodpecker finds insects living under the bark, it uses its beak: a measured and loud “knock-knock-knock” spreads far through the forest. With strong blows, the woodpecker breaks the bark or makes a funnel in it, exposing the passages of root insects, and with a sticky long tongue that easily penetrates into these passages, the bird extracts larvae and adult insects from under the bark. In autumn, the woodpecker's way of obtaining food and its composition change. A bird plucks a cone from a coniferous tree, clamps it into a natural niche or a niche hollowed out by itself at the top of a shrunken tree trunk and strikes it with force with its beak. With blows of its beak, the woodpecker opens the scales of the cone, extracts and eats the seeds. Usually, a mountain of cones accumulates under such a woodpecker forge by the end of winter: 5000-7000 broken cones were found under separate forges. Every day, the woodpecker breaks up to 100 cones, and therefore, in order to provide itself with food in winter, each bird captures an individual plot in the fall, the area of ​​\u200b\u200bwhich, depending on the yield of coniferous seeds and the number of coniferous trees on the site, ranges from 5 to 15 hectares. On each of these sites there are several dozen forges. Birds protect their individual areas and do not allow other woodpeckers to enter them. In early spring, woodpeckers, along with seeds, again begin to eat insects that have emerged after wintering. And at the beginning of sap flow in birch woodpeckers, the woodpecker often makes horizontal rows of holes in the bark with its beak on the trunks and on the branches of trees, and when the juice appears, it alternately applies its beak to each hole and drinks. Thus, in the diet of woodpeckers, there is a clearly pronounced seasonal change in food. In autumn and winter, woodpeckers feed on the seeds of coniferous trees, in spring and summer - animal food. In a significant amount big motley the woodpecker eats ants: 300-500 insects were found in the stomachs of some dead birds. Quite often, woodpeckers eat various beetles, especially those living under the bark, bark beetles and barbels, as well as weevils, leaf beetles, etc. The large spotted woodpecker is a useful bird. By hollowing out hollows, which are usually not reused by woodpeckers themselves, they thereby create a housing stock for many other very useful hollow-nesters (for example, tits and flycatchers) that arrange nests in ready-made hollows. In addition, woodpeckers are able to extract and destroy such pests that are dangerous for the forest, such as xylophagous insects (bark beetles, barbels, etc.), which have no enemies among birds other than woodpeckers. The woodpecker hammers only trees infected with pests, and therefore the traces of this activity are signals indicating that the tree is affected and needs to be cut down. Eating the seeds of coniferous trees in winter, the great spotted woodpecker does not interfere with the self-renewal of these species, since during the winter it eats only a few percent of the seed crop.

Lesser Spotted Woodpecker / Dendrocopos minor

The small spotted woodpecker is one of the smallest woodpeckers: it is only slightly larger than a sparrow in size. In plumage coloration, it is very similar to the great spotted woodpecker. With all its habits, it also resembles its larger relative, but, unlike the latter, the small spotted woodpecker is more common on lateral branches and thin branches of trees than on trunks. It is more mobile and does not linger on the same tree for more than one minute when searching for food.In winter, it often hammers the thin tops of young fir trees or picks out something in thin branches. It cannot crush cones with its weak beak. Its food consists exclusively of various root beetles - barbels, bark beetles and carpenter ants.

Small spotted woodpecker

In nesting time, he keeps very secretive, but at other times quite noisy. The voice of this bird sounds like a frequently repeated mournful "ki-ki-ki-ki-ki ...". Its small, neatly made low above the ground in drying and decaying trunks of aspen or alder hollows are most willingly engaged in small insectivorous hollow-nesting birds. The small spotted woodpecker lives in deciduous and mixed forests in the north of Algeria, in Europe and on the adjacent islands, in the Caucasus, in Asia Minor and in the west of Iran, in Siberia (with the exception of the north of the taiga), reaching east to North Korea, Primorye, Sakhalin and Kamchatka.

Red woodpecker/ Micropternus brachyurus

The red woodpecker got its name because the main color of its plumage is reddish-brown. Wings and tail with black transverse stripes. The beak is dark brown, the legs are greyish brown. The eyes are brownish red. Coloring different birds highly variable: some individuals are red or rusty red, while others are brown and dark chestnut. The thumb of this woodpecker is underdeveloped, and therefore its paws seem to be three-toed. This is a medium-sized woodpecker: the body length of the bird is about 25 cm. All plumage of red woodpeckers (especially the head, chest and tail) is smeared with some kind of sticky substance. This substance is nothing but the juices of ants crushed by woodpeckers.

red woodpecker

These insects, found in masses on trees where woodpeckers climb, are very aggressive, they cling to the plumage of a bird and try to bite. The woodpecker, on the other hand, crushes the ants by rubbing its hard plumage (especially the tail) against the unevenness of the bark; the ants are crushed, and their juices are smeared over the body of the bird. Therefore, the body of woodpeckers has a peculiar specific smell of formic acid. The constant proximity to ants, which crawl en masse along the branches and trunks of trees where the birds gather their food, leads to another interesting feature. The tail of these birds is almost always adorned with more or less heads of large red (or fire, as they are also called) ants. These ants, having grabbed something, no longer let their prey out of their jaws, and even if you tear off the head of this insect, it will still hold on to what it grabbed. When woodpeckers climb the trunks of mango trees, ants grab them by the tail feathers, die from the friction of the bird's tail against the roughness of the bark, but their heads still remain on the beards of the feathers. This woodpecker lives along the eastern slopes of the Himalayas, in Hindustan, Ceylon, Indochina and the southern provinces of China, inhabiting the valleys of lowland rivers and mountains up to an altitude of 2000 m above sea level. Here the red woodpecker keeps to the edges of the forest; often it can be found in tea gardens, in cultivated fields with rare bamboo trees, in banana plantations; however, it often settles in sparse areas of the forest, avoiding the impenetrable jungle. The breeding season for this woodpecker lasts from February to June. The nests of these birds are wonderful - woodpeckers do not build them themselves, they nest in anthills! Large tree ants of the genus Crematogaster, fire ants of the jungle, live in Indochina. These ants arrange their nests in the crowns of trees at a height of 2 to 20 m from the ground. Outside, the ant nest is a mass of gray-brown color, most of all resembling felt, cardboard or papier-mâché, but usually characterized by great strength and hardness. In the wall of this structure, the red woodpecker makes a rounded hole about 5 cm in diameter. This hole leads to an internal cavity in which the female lays her eggs. For the construction of this “nest in a nest”, woodpeckers, oddly enough, always choose the largest and always populated anthills! And it is completely incomprehensible why large, terrible for all living ants do not touch either eggs, or chicks, or the incubating female herself! But the incubating female feeds on ant pupae, which she easily pecks without rising from the eggs. The clutch of this woodpecker usually consists of 3 eggs. They are white in color, and their shell is thin and transparent. However, after some time, from contact with formic acid secreted by insects, the shell darkens and the eggs become brownish. Red woodpeckers feed on various types of ants, which they collect in mass on the trunks and branches of trees, as well as on the ground, where they often descend in search of food. But most often and in large numbers they eat ants of the genus Crematogaster. In early spring, these woodpeckers often visit banana plantations. Here, on the trunks of banana palms, birds make holes with their beaks and drink sweet juice.

Three-toed Woodpecker / Picoides tridactylus

The three-toed woodpecker is a beautiful, colorful bird. Her back is white with wide black streaks, her uppertail is brownish black, her tail is black with transverse white stripes along the edges of its top. The wings are brownish-black with white streaks. The forehead, nape and back of the neck are black with white streaks on the forehead and nape, the sides of the head and neck are white. From the eye back, going down the side of the neck, there is a wide black stripe; the same black stripe goes from the base of the lower jaw along the sides of the throat and goiter and breaks up on the sides of the chest into large longitudinal black spots.The male's crown is yellow, the female's is gray. characteristic feature of these birds is the absence of their first toe - they are three-toed: two fingers are turned forward and one back.

three-toed woodpecker

This is a medium-sized woodpecker: the wing length is 12-13 cm. Three-toed woodpeckers are common in Central and Eastern Europe (except for the southern regions), in Siberia (reaching north to the Arctic Circle, and east to North Korea, Primorye, Sakhalin and Kamchatka), and also in most of North America (absent only in far north and the southeastern United States). They inhabit vast and dense forests of the northern type (mainly coniferous), and in the south they are kept in mountain forests. This woodpecker starts breeding early: even at the northern borders of its distribution, already in February, the drum roll of a male recklessly tapping his beak on a dry branch is often heard. Males continue to drum throughout the spring - until the end of May. During this period, three-toed woodpeckers are very lively, they chirp and often cry out. Hollows are arranged most often in larches, often in spruces. Usually the male and female gouge out a hollow in rotting, dried up or scorched trees and even in stumps, but often in intact trees. More often, such a hollow is located low from the ground: at a height of 1-6 m, where 3-6 white eggs are laid. In June, still poorly flying young birds can be found in most of the range. After leaving the nest, the whole family first roams together in the forest, then the brood breaks up. AT winter period migrations reach a large scale, and at this time most birds move far to the south of their nesting sites. This woodpecker feeds on wood insects, and in autumn also seeds and berries. The three-toed woodpecker obtains its food almost exclusively with the help of chiseling, and catches open-living insects only during the feeding of chicks. It is not surprising, therefore, that in the stomachs of these birds, larvae, pupae, and adult beetles are always found in large numbers living under the bark of trees, primarily larvae of bark beetles and barbels, as well as larvae of borers, weevils, horntails, etc. This bird is very voracious: for an incomplete winter day, one three-toed woodpecker can tear off the bark from a large spruce infected with bark beetles with blows of its beak. And according to rough estimates, it is known that there are about 10,000 bark beetle larvae on such a spruce! Even if the woodpecker does not find and eat all the bark beetles, they will die from winter frosts, falling on the snow with broken bark. The three-toed woodpecker is one of the most useful birds of the coniferous forest.