Bird feeder guest - great spotted woodpecker

Photo: Arne Ader
Translation: Liis
 
Great spotted woodpecker
 
  Great spotted wodpecker Suur – kirjurähn   Dendrocopus major    
 
Woodpeckers too visit bird feeders to gorge themselves on the delicacies.
The characteristic mark of the males of the great spotted woodpeckers is the red area at the back of the neck (nape); the bird in Arne’s photo is a male. A black crown and black back feathers, white patches on the shoulders: similar for both male and female birds and a quite noticeable get-up in nature now, but still a little less colourful than the male bullfinches.
Winter food in the forest is mostly conifer seeds. The woodpecker’s workshops, or "smithies”, can be cracks in tree bark, splits in stumps of trunks, or forked branches. It can use conifer or broadleaf trees or dead trees. The cone is wedged in, with the tip upwards, and is picked clean of seeds on one side, then turned around and the other side is finished off. The emptied cones on the ground at the foot of the smithy have a tangled look, only the bottom of the cone is smooth and untouched. The “handicraft” of the great spotted woodpecker looks quite different from cones gnawed by mice.
The great spotted woodpeckers do quite well, and the estimated winter number may be up to three hundred thousand birds.

Balsnack even has a larger fat ball for woodpeckers. The woodpeckers do visit it: tried and proven!

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