The trees in the forest stand like green giants, powerful and strong. And few people would think that every second an invisible war is going on on their powerful trunks and under the thick crowns. Hordes of insect pests attack their bark, leaves, roots, wood, threatening to slowly undermine, weaken, and then completely destroy these defenseless heroes.

Once, in some southern forestry, there was a massive invasion of trees by a huge number of caterpillars, and a team of workers manually fought them. In two weeks, they collected a terrible “harvest”: 120 buckets, or more than 2 million rainy green eaters. And it is not known how many of them remain on inaccessible branches, under the bark, on the tops.

Agile winged fighters search for forest pests everywhere. Destroying them in the grass, and in the foliage, and under the bark, and even inside the trunk. There are our own specialists and our own record holders. For example, the woodpecker is an unsurpassed forest surgeon. His specialization is internal <> of the tree. The woodpecker, with its beak, like a scalpel, deftly opens the bark of a birch or pine tree, destroying the pests that have bred under it. The operations he performs can also involve deeper layers: the beetle larvae that have made hidden passages in the trunk will not hide from such a “surgeon”. Having opened such micro-holes, the woodpecker launches its narrow and long sticky tongue into them, instantly fishing out from the depths of the hole the one who considered himself safe. In this case, nature has endowed the woodpecker not only with the longest tongue among birds - about 10 centimeters, but also with a special device for laying inside the skull.

The order Woodpeckers includes over 380 species that live all over the world, except Australia and Antarctica. There are six families in the detachment. The most numerous and widespread are true woodpeckers. There are 209 species in the family, most of them live in South America.

In South and Central America, there are 15 species of relatives of our woodpeckers belonging to the yacamarid family. () They have bright, metallic plumage, in which green, blue, and also red tones predominate. They nest on steep banks of rivers and streams, in ravines, and sometimes in termite mounds. The birds dig holes 30-50 cm long. In their hunting style, they are not at all like woodpeckers, but rather resemble flycatchers. Yakamara usually sits on a branch and waits for a fly or butterfly to fly nearby; Having noticed the prey, it breaks from its perch and catches the victim. The jacamar's beak is very long, straight, awl-shaped, with longitudinal edges.

There, in the tropics of America, puffballs, or sloths, live, forming a separate family, 30 species. Biologically, these birds are similar to jacamars - they live in burrows (sometimes in hollows), feed on insects that they catch in the air or collect on the forest floor. However, they differ in appearance. Powderpuffs have loose plumage, making them appear fluffy, and a short, thick, downward-curved beak. Puffballs are very leisurely and spend a significant part of their lives in some kind of lethargic or lazy state. They feed on insects, which they catch falling from a perch or are collected from the surface of the ground.

The tropical forests of Africa, Asia and America are inhabited by representatives of another family of woodpeckers - bearded vultures, 76 species. These birds received their name for the well-developed bristles (highly modified feathers) around the beak. Beards have a rather large beak with a hook at the end, with which they hollow out hollows or dig holes. Unlike most woodpeckers, they feed on fruits and berries.

Representatives of the toucan family live in the tropics of America, all 37 representatives. These birds attract attention with their huge, often brightly colored beaks and featherless skin around the eyes. Thanks to the spongy structure, the beak is very light, so it is easy for the bird to maintain balance. Toucans are omnivores and spend most of their time climbing trees and collecting fruits, insects, eggs and chicks of other birds. They fly poorly, mainly over short distances. The nesting of toucans is interesting. The pair finds an old hollow, and the female lays two to four eggs. Several birds incubate the clutch and feed the chicks - parents and other toucans that do not have their own nest this season.

Honeyguides, 12 species, are found in Southeast Asia and Africa. In appearance, they are more similar to large tits than to woodpeckers. In Latin, the family is called Indicatoridae, which means “indicators” or “indicators”. These birds are known for their ability to search for wasp and bee colonies. The honey guide itself is often unable to penetrate the hollow, and it begins to scream loudly and actively spin around, attracting the attention of other honey lovers. Local residents and some animals (for example, the African honey badger) know the habits of the bird well and use it as a kind of guide. Having discovered a nest of insects, the honey guide waits for a person or animal to destroy it, and then eats the remaining larvae, honey and honeycombs. Special intestinal bacteria help birds absorb wax, and thick skin protects nest owners from being bitten.

Honeyguides are characterized by nest parasitism. Like many cuckoos, they lay their eggs in the nests of other birds. The hatched chick does not throw its neighbors out of the nest, but kills them with the help of a large strong hook located at the end of its beak.

Woodpecker family

The woodpecker family has 209 species, which are divided into 40 genera. There are such woodpeckers: the ground woodpecker in South Africa, the pampas woodpecker in the pampas of South America, the golden woodpecker in North America, the copper woodpecker in the south of North America and many others.

Only 11 species constantly nest in Russia. The largest of them, the black woodpecker, is the size of a crow, and the smallest, the lesser spotted woodpecker, is slightly larger than a sparrow.

Almost all members of the woodpecker family are arboreal birds, and their range coincides with the distribution zone of trees, but there are exceptions. The ground woodpecker from South Africa does not like forests and lives in open areas, spending most of its time on the ground. Instead of a hollow, he makes a hole up to 1 m long, and at the end of it he makes a nest - he lines it with selected wool.

In the beginning of March. When there is still snow and frosts are not uncommon, you can hear “drum rolls” in the forest. This woodpecker already senses the approach of spring. Having chosen a suitable trunk, he hits it hard with his beak, and a loud knock echoes through the forest. This is how a male woodpecker attracts a female and lets his rivals know that the territory is occupied.

Woodpeckers mainly settle in hollows, which, as a rule, they hollow out themselves. They do not build nests; the female lays 2-8 white eggs directly on the wood chips and dust remaining at the bottom of the hollow. The parents incubate the clutch in turns, and at night the male remains in the nest. In the great woodpecker, cases of double nesting are known, when a couple makes two hollows, the female lays eggs in them, and then the parents separate: one brood is looked after by the female, and the other by the male. Woodpeckers feed their chicks very often: they fly to the hollow up to 300 times a day.

With the help of a strong beak, shaped like a chisel, woodpeckers easily reach the passages of larvae and adult insects living under the bark and in wood. And with a long tongue (a woodpecker can stick it out almost to the length of its beak), equipped with bristles, pointed at the end and moistened with sticky saliva, it takes out prey from this passage. In winter, birds feed on the seeds of coniferous trees. To make it more convenient to extract seeds from a cone, the woodpecker makes a forge - he hollows out a small hole in the tree trunk and fixes the cone torn from the tree in it. Then he deftly removes the seeds and throws away the empty cone. In a day, a woodpecker can process up to 100 cones in this way, and over the winter several thousand of them accumulate around a tree with a “forge.” In the spring, woodpeckers hollow out the trunks of birch trees and drink the sap; at the end of summer, they eat berries and peck apples in the orchards. The green woodpecker feeds mainly on ants from spring to autumn.

Only woodpeckers, and even pikas, can sit on a trunk “like soldiers” and move helically from bottom to top, clinging to the bark with sharp claws and helping themselves with a hard, elastic tail. And only woodpeckers have such a beak - long, strong, chisel-like. With its beak, it peels the cones of spruce and pine trees in winter; the beak also serves as a “musical instrument”; in the spring, it knocks on a dry branch, producing a drum roll.

And of course, the beak is a tool with which the woodpecker extracts insects from trunks or from under the bark. However, no matter how long and how strong the beak is, it cannot grab an insect. The woodpecker can only get to it with its beak, but how to get it out? And here the bird’s tongue comes to the aid - long (in some species up to ten centimeters), sticky, with sharp and hard notches on the edges. The woodpecker will stick such a tongue into the hole, or even into the passages made by the larvae, glue the prey or prick it onto a notch and pull it out.

Woodpeckers make nests in hollows, and hollow out the hollows themselves. Males and females hammer alternately. They also incubate alternately. There is no litter at the bottom of the hollow. Woodpeckers (there are five to seven of them) are raised in a Spartan, stern manner - they sit right on the bare floor. The delicate paws would have rubbed against the rough walls of the hollow, but then nature took care of it: it provided the chicks with special hard “heel calluses.” After the chicks fly out of the nest, these calluses disappear.

Parents diligently feed their babies. They arrive with food three hundred times a day. They often go quite far in search of food; they cannot find it in sufficient quantities near the nest. The chicks spend three weeks in the nest, and then are dependent on their parents for about another month. After this, the woodpeckers drive the children away. Or they fly away on their own.

Harsh times are autumn and winter. The Great Spotted Woodpecker switches to plant food, begins to peel cones in its “forges,” while the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker continues to hunt for insects hiding in crevices, under the bark, and in the cracks of trees.

Everything said applies to other woodpeckers. For example, to the green, quite large (its weight is up to two hundred and fifty grams) and rare, and to the three-toed woodpecker (it really has three fingers, a white stripe on the back and a “yellow cap” on the male) - one of the most useful birds of our forest. By the way, in winter, the three-toed bird often rips off the bark of a spruce tree infected with bark beetle larvae with blows of its beak and allows other wintering birds to eat the larvae. And it really helps starving birds!

Of course, all this also applies to the black woodpecker, or woodpecker, the largest living in our country (its weight is more than three hundred grams). The bird is large, it needs a lot of food: it catches several hundred larvae of harmful insects per day!

But most woodpeckers living in Europe are not very original birds. Their lifestyle is basically similar. All are great hard workers and very useful to the forest.

Great Spotted Woodpecker

The main color of the plumage is contrasting white and black. With red undertail. The male has a red nape. The female's is black. In young birds, the top of the head is completely red. Like the average spotted woodpecker. The tail is hard, wedge-shaped, the paw is typical of woodpeckers, zygodactyl (two fingers point forward and two back). The species is sedentary, sometimes nomadic. It has 20 subspecies in Eurasia and North-West Africa.

Inhabitant of various types of forests: coniferous, deciduous. Mixed. With a large number of dead, diseased and old trees, convenient for nesting and foraging. Common in city parks, plantings, alleys.

In April, 4-6 shiny eggs are laid in a hollowed-out hollow, which are incubated mainly by the male for 11-13 days. The chicks leave the hollow three weeks after birth. One clutch per year. Unlike the green woodpecker, it rarely descends to the ground. The flight is typical diving. The <> that the bird makes is often used to mark territory. It feeds on insects, berries, and seeds. Sometimes it eats the eggs of other forest birds. During mating games, both partners chase each other in a spiral along tree trunks.

Black woodpecker, yellow

Zhelna is the largest of the European woodpeckers - body length up to 50 cm, weight up to 300 g. The plumage is completely black, the top of the head is red in the male, and only the back of the head in the female. In flight, it is recognized by its rather rounded wings and long, pointed tail. The paw is typical for woodpeckers, zygodactyl. The characteristic shape of the "bottoms" is an almost regular rectangle stretched from top to bottom.

It nests in all areas of the district. Pairs form at the end of winter. At this time, you can hear “drum rolls” accompanied by characteristic screams. They settle at a great distance from each other and stay solitary outside the breeding season. The gray eel nests in hollows, hollowing them out in pines, aspens, and spruces. The woman's home is curious. And not even the hollow itself, but the entrance to it. Zhelna makes it either oval or square with average dimensions of 12x9.5 cm. This woodpecker is such an original!

The female usually lays 4-6 white eggs in a hollow at the end of March. Both parents incubate for 12-14 days. The chicks leave the hollow at 24-28 days of age. One clutch per year. Zhelna destroys stem pests (bark beetles, woodcutters, larvae of golden beetles and longhorned beetles, horntails, carpenter beetles and carpenter ants). Chicks eat 150-180 thousand insects during the nesting period.

Nesting hollows are used by many hollow-nesting birds, as well as squirrels and bats. It only hammers the affected trees, clearing them of bark and destroying most of the pests.

The bird is cautious, the voice is loud or mournful. The <> that the bird makes by knocking on the trunk can be heard over long distances. The flight, unlike other woodpeckers, is less wave-like, reminiscent of the flight of the nutcracker. Sedentary, small species. Subject to protection in all places of its habitat.

Lesser Spotted Woodpecker

The smallest European woodpecker. The plumage is contrasting white and black, the upper body is streaked with transverse white stripes, the top of the head is red in the male and whitish in the female. The female Lesser Spotted Woodpecker, along with the Three-toed Woodpecker and the Wingtail, are the only European woodpeckers that do not have red tones in their plumage. The tail is hard. The paw is typical for woodpeckers, zygodactyl. The species is sedentary and nomadic.

It nests in forests of various types: often mixed, preferring open deciduous forests with a large number of dead and damaged trees. Quite often found in floodplain forests, copses, parks, and old orchards.

The nest is made in a hollow. At the end of April, 4-6 shiny white eggs are laid, incubated mainly by the male, for about two weeks. The chicks leave the hollow at the age of 18-21 days. One clutch per year, unlike the green woodpecker, rarely descends to the ground. The flight is typical for woodpeckers, diving. The “shot”, which is emitted by both the male and the female, often marks the territory. It feeds on insects and larvae living in wood and thick stems of grasses (burdock, umbellifers), and spiders. It can also stay high in the crown of trees, where, with the agility of small passerine birds, it examines the branches in search of food. In winter, it often teams up with flocks of tits and pikas. The voice is similar to the voice of a whirlwind, but more alarming and shrill.

Three-toed woodpecker

The woodpecker is not large, it differs from others in the absence of red in its plumage, in another combination of white and black colors, in the presence of only three toes on its paw, two of which are directed forward, and one is directed backward. The top of the head of the male is yellowish, while that of the female is dirty white. The species is sedentary.

In the northern parts of the range it inhabits taiga forests, in the southern parts it inhabits old coniferous mountain forests at an altitude of 1000 m above sea level.

The nest is made in a hollow, which is usually hollowed out in the trunk of a dead coniferous tree at a height of about 15 m from the ground. The diameter of the entrance hole is on average 4.7 cm. At the end of April, the female lays 3-5 white eggs, which are incubated by both parents for about 11 days. Three-toed woodpecker chicks, like chicks of other woodpeckers, leave the nest on the 22-25th day of life, but remain dependent on their parents for at least another month. One clutch per year. The three-toed woodpecker is notable for its secretive lifestyle; its presence can be detected by holes hollowed out on the trunks <> and a quiet, measured tapping.

In some European regions, there has been a slight decline in the number of three-toed woodpeckers due to changes in the environment, a decrease in the number of dead and diseased trees suitable for nesting and feeding, and human disturbance.

Gray Woodpecker

Somewhat smaller than the green woodpecker, it differs from it in having thin black antennae downwards from gray <>. The front part of the crown of the male is red, while that of the female is gray. The upperparts are greenish, with a yellow loin; the underside is dirty white with a slight yellowish tint. The wings are dark with numerous white contrasting spots. The paw is typical for woodpeckers. The species is sedentary.

The gray woodpecker nests in wooded mountains and hills, preferring deciduous trees. In the central and northern parts of its European range, it usually inhabits cool and moist lowland forests. In the Alps it occupies mainly forests with an admixture of coniferous species.

In April, the couple hollows out a hollow in which the female lays 7-9 white eggs. Both parents incubate for 14-15 days. The chicks leave the hollow after 24-28 days. One clutch per year. The entrance hole of the nest has an average diameter of 5.7 cm. The voice is characteristic. Reminds me of the "laughter" of a green woodpecker, but less sharp and fading towards the end. The gray-haired woodpecker makes a drawn-out “drum roll”, mainly in the spring. It extracts insects and larvae from under the bark by chiseling wood, and breaks up anthills on the ground.

It lives on the left bank of the Ob River to the mouth of the Irtysh, and is known to be found in the Konda and Malaya Sosva basins. In the vicinity of Khanty-Mansiysk, other woodpeckers are less common.

White-backed Woodpecker

The white-backed woodpecker is similar to the spotted woodpecker, but larger (weight 105 - 125 g), it has a white spot on its back, white transverse stripes on its wings, and the top of the head is red in males. Distributed on the left bank of the Ob, covering the floodplain of the Irtysh, the lower reaches of Tromyegan and Vakh. Wintering birds are found in the vicinity of Khanty-Mansiysk. Breeds in mixed and deciduous forests, along old clearings, often in floodplains. The basis of nutrition consists of xylophagous insects, extracted from under the bark and from wood by chiselling. There are 4 - 5 eggs in a clutch. A small, sedentary and nomadic bird.

Vertichneck

Unlike other woodpeckers, the whirligig has soft tail feathers, and the tail does not serve as a support when climbing. Slightly larger than a sparrow, body length 18 - 19.5 cm, weight 35 g. The back is gray-brown, there are dark longitudinal stripes on the head and neck, the belly is gray with a thin transverse pattern, the wings and tail are reddish. The whirligig cannot climb tree trunks, it stays mainly on branches, often walks on the ground, and cannot hollow out hollows itself, but occupies ready-made ones. A sedentary bird, it moves along the ground with clumsy jumps, and after flying into the air, it hurries to sit on a tree. A frightened bird stretches its neck and constantly turns its head left and right, which is why it got its name. At the same time, he ruffles the feathers on his head and hisses like a snake. In the district it lives in all areas. Preference is given to open deciduous forests. Common in forest belts, plantings, orchards in rural areas, sometimes found in vegetable gardens and parks.

It nests along the edges of sparse deciduous and dark coniferous forests, along river valleys, clearings and burnt areas, in woodpecker hollows, tree crevices, and birdhouses. Arrives in the second half of May - early June. There are up to 13 eggs in a clutch (usually 6 - 12), which are incubated mainly by the female for 11 days. The chicks leave the hollow at about three weeks of age. There is one clutch per year, rarely two.

A secretive bird, the whirligig makes its presence known by its characteristic singing of repeated shrill and crying sounds. The habits are not typical for woodpeckers: it does not make “drum rolls”, does not gouge tree trunks in search of food, and rarely hollows out hollows for nesting.

Interesting fact. It feeds almost exclusively on ants. Tears apart anthills in search of adult insects, pupae, larvae and eggs. It reaches for insects with its long sticky tongue. In addition to ants, grasshoppers and other insects can serve as food for the whirligig. Defending the nest, it stretches its neck and, moving its head like a <>, hisses.

The only representative of our woodpeckers that flies to warm countries for the winter, in August - early September. They winter in North Africa and South Asia. Few in number. Subject to protection.

The woodpeckers that inhabit Europe in our country are the middle spotted woodpecker, the green woodpecker and others.

Middle Spotted Woodpecker

Smaller than the Great Spotted Woodpecker, it differs from it in having a completely red top of the head and dark streaks on the sides. The tail is hard. The paw is typical for woodpeckers. Zygodactyl. Females and males without obvious differences. The species is sedentary and nomadic.

It nests in deciduous and mixed forests: oak forests, beech groves with dense undergrowth and a sufficient number of dead and old trees. Prefers mature beech forests. But it also settles in smaller numbers in areas of different ages.

At the end of April, 5-6 white shiny eggs are laid in the hollow, incubated mainly by the male, for 11-13 days. The chicks leave the nest 21-23 days after hatching. One clutch per year. Unlike the green woodpecker, it rarely descends to the ground. Prefers to stay on branches in the crown of a tree. Like the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker. The flight is typical undulating. <> does not come out often. Song is a series of repeated sonorous nasal sounds.

Related species: white-backed woodpecker. Larger than the Great Spotted Woodpecker. Recognized by its white back and the absence of large white spots on the wings. Leads a sedentary lifestyle, inhabits the north of Central Eurasia. In Europe, it is represented in the northeastern regions and the main mountain systems in the south, such as the Alps and the Pyrenees. In Italy, the population size, nesting locally in the south of the Central Apennines, is 200-500 pairs.

Green Woodpecker

Larger than a gray-haired woodpecker, the plumage is yellow-green, with a red “cap” and red “whiskers” outlined in black downwards from the eyes. The tail is hard. The paw is typical for woodpeckers, zygodactyl.

The species is sedentary. Inhabitant primarily of deciduous and mixed, less often coniferous, forests with a large number of tall trees. Also common in parks, pine groves, evergreens.

Usually at the end of April it hollows out a hollow. As a rule, not high above the ground. The female lays 5-7 shiny white eggs, which are incubated mainly by the male for 14-19 days. The chicks leave the hollow on the 24-26th day. One brood per year. The bird is cautious and leads a solitary lifestyle outside the breeding season. It reveals its presence with a shrill, unexpected “laughter”. Unlike the gray woodpecker, it rarely knocks out a shot. The flight is typical for woodpeckers, wavy. The green woodpecker's main diet consists of ants. These birds hunt for them throughout the year, in winter they even dig out anthills from under the snow. It also feeds on insects, which it hunts under bark, hollows out of wood, and extracts from cracks in trunks. During difficult times of the year, includes fruits, berries and seeds in the diet.

Interesting fact. The bird's tongue is very sensitive - the woodpecker not only uses it to retrieve, but also gropes for insects hidden under the bark and in the wood.

The number of green woodpeckers is falling in certain regions of Europe due to environmental changes and a reduction in the food supply.

Similar articles

Small swan - representative of the Red...

The role of birds in nature. The benefits...

Why you need to build bird feeders

Features and distinctive features of owls