Great spotted woodpecker

The great spotted woodpecker is found across the Palearctic including parts of North Africa. It has pied black and white plumage and a red patch on the lower belly. Males and young birds also have red markings on the neck or head. It breeds in holes excavated in living or dead trees, unlined apart from wood chips.

About Great spotted woodpecker in brief

The great spotted woodpecker is found across the Palearctic including parts of North Africa. It has pied black and white plumage and a red patch on the lower belly. Males and young birds also have red markings on the neck or head. The species is closely related to some other members of its genus. It breeds in holes excavated in living or dead trees, unlined apart from wood chips. The typical clutch is four to six glossy white eggs. It is classed as a species of least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) It has a huge range and large population, with no widespread threats, so it is considered to be of little concern by IUCN. The great spotted Woodpecker was described by Carl Linnaeus in his landmark 1758 10th edition of Systema Naturae as Picus major. It was moved to its current genus, Dendrocopus, by the German naturalist Carl Ludwig Koch in 1816. The genus name is a combination of the Greek words dendron, \”tree\”, and kopos, \”striking\”. The specific major is from Latin maior, \”greater\”. Recognised subspecies vary by author from as few as 14 to nearly 30. The fossil subspecies D. m. submajor lived during the Middle Pleistocene Riss glaciation when it was found in Europe south of the ice sheet. The upperparts are glossy blue-black with white on the face and breast. Black lines run from the shoulder to the base of the bill and neck.

There is a large white shoulder patch and the underparts are barred with black white, as is the tail. The underparts of the flight feathers are white than other than a lower belly and a scarlet and red undertail. The juvenile’s lower belly is less well-defined than the adult’s and the crown of the crown is red rather than pink. Juvenile birds are less pink than adults and have a tinge to their upperparts and less brown to their underparts and a greenish-grey eye is deep red. Males have a crimson patch on their nape, which is absent from the otherwise similar females. The nominate subspecies is D. m. canariensis from Tenerife in the Canary Islands. Despite its distinctive appearance, it appears to be closer to the nominate sub species D.  m. major than other subspecies. Some individuals have a tendency to wander, leading to the recent recolonisation of Ireland and to vagrancy to North America. It eats a variety of foods, being capable of extracting seeds from pine cones, insect larvae from inside trees or eggs and chicks of other birds from their nests. In the north some will migrate if the conifer cone crop fails. This species is similar to the Syrian woodpeckers, but did not differ significantly from the extant great spottedWoodpecker, whose European subspecies are probably its direct descendants.

Related posts:

Red-bellied black snake Turquoise parrot Spotted green pigeon Faith Spotted Eagle