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Winter birds: Lesser spotted woodpecker
Photos: Arne Ader
Translation: Liis
Lesser spotted woodpecker
Lesser spotted woodpecker Väike kirjurähn Dendrocopos minor
The lesser spotted woodpecker rarely comes to our home gardens, or rather, only accidentally. In winter they keep company with tit flocks and together with them some individual may briefly visit a birdfeeder, fat ball or piece of lard. It is more likely to notice the smallest European woodpecker in winter in a leafless stand of broadleaf trees, a park or a cemetery. Similar to treecreepers they search for food on the undersides of thicker branches. Those that nest here are mostly sedentary birds. The winter number, which may increase somewhat with migrants from the north, reaches up to twenty thousand in some years.
The miniature lesser spotted woodpecker is the size of a large great tit with whom they peacefully keep company, but of course with a different body shape. The length is 15 centimetres and weight a little more than 20 grams. A round head, eyes reddish brown, a short sharp black beak and grey legs. They have the same black-and-white plumage the year round (the much larger white-backed woodpecker looks similar). They don’t have the red undertail area as the other larger black and white woodpeckers have. Only the male’s crown and forehead have red patches. In the cheek and side plumage of all a brownish tinge can be seen.
No surprise if we meet a lesser spotted woodpecker in a reed bank –insects have crept into hiding in the reed stems for winter.
Lesser spotted woodpecker observations: LINK
Lesser spotted woodpecker
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