El Woodpecker, belong to the family of the Pícidos (Picidae), they are beautiful birds with colorful plumage, which are located in different regions, except in Australia, Madagascar and the extreme polar zones.
Characteristics of the Woodpecker
These birds are popularly known by golfer tree trunks for find insects that are found in the cracks on the surfaces of the trees and thus feed on them in turn to drill holes in the trees to make their nests. Currently there are traditional of one hundred and eighty (180) specimens of woodpeckers in the world, belonging to the group of birds Picidae.
El bird Carpenter has a set of physical characteristics that consist of so extraordinary:
- Su sharp, sharp beak
- The structure of its body is fascinating when it comes to birds.
- It is conditioned to habits of nutrition that involve reassert, climb y hammer vigorously the trunks of the trees.
- They vary in size, but most are six (6) to ten (10) inches long. There are some species that can grow up to twenty (20) inches.
- Feather colors and patterns vary between species.
beak and tongue
Its main characteristic and the most outstanding is the noise it causes when it repeatedly hits the trunk of the tree with its beak, it is like a kind of record that it leaves behind. Its beak is shaped in such a way that it can be used to collect food among the bark of the wood.
When the woodpecker hammers the trunk of a tree, this blow is received by three different parts of the beak:
- The outer part of the beak absorbs the initial blow.
- It has an internal soft bone that is attached to the beak that separates the impact.
- The cerebral shield is the part that receives the remaining impact that is perceived.
After these three parts of the beak receive this impact, tremors or agitation arise as a result of the blow, which is received by a kind of tendon formed by filaments called hyroids that covers the bird's skull and in turn serves as support for the tongue and throat .
A woodpecker's tongue can be up to four (10) centimeters long and is extremely efficient at eating ants or other insects from wood due to its pointed and sticky design. It can also be used to extract tree sap. Some woodpeckers have slightly curved tongues, and there are species of woodpeckers that have shorter, straighter tongues.
It is important to know that the woodpecker is a bird whose skull is formed so that it does not suffer any damage when its beak hits a tree. Studies have been carried out where it is estimated that this bird hits the trunk twenty times (20) per second and that each impact is one thousand two hundred grams (1.200). If we refer to the human, this impact that this bird makes on the trees would move the human brain.
woodpecker vocalization
The respiratory system of these birds consists of nostrils, the pharynx, air sacs and bronchi. The voices of woodpeckers tend to mantener un tonality strong y rowdy to match your strong agility of hammering
Una rarity is bird Carpenter Lewis, who does not make frequent vocal noises. Many woodpeckers make train noises or repeated rattles. Sometimes it seems that they are scolding each other by making loud noises.
body plumage
As there are many species of woodpeckers, the plumage varies from one species to another. But mostly the colors are black, red, yellow, brown, among others.
The difference in color is also determined by gender. Most males have a red spot on their heads while females do not and have a red spot on their belly. Woodpeckers are characterized by a different anatomy, which is why it is difficult to determine the gender of the bird with the naked eye.
tail feathers
The tail feathers are important when hammering on the trunks, they are very hard and serve as a support due to the number of large muscles they have, they have sharp spines inside the tail feathers that are used when pierce the food
They have a wedge shape and their height gives woodpeckers additional support hence the posture they exert during their tapping on the trunk.
Pins
The woodpecker has designed legs called zygodactic legs, which help to maintain balance in the tree, its claws are very sharp to be able to grab and climb tree trunks, looking up or down. down. They have two fingers facing forwards and two backwards, they have a fourth finger which can be positioned to the sides offering the bird the necessary stability to be able to climb and hammer the trees with its beak.
woodpecker size
Woodpeckers vary in size depending on the species from small to large. There are downy woodpeckers that inhabit the United States and Canada. They are downy and are the smallest, measuring six (6) inches in length. Among the largest of the woodpeckers we find the pilted woodpeckers, the red-headed woodpeckers and the Lewis woodpeckers.
But generally they stay at an average size of seven (7) to nine (9) inches long. While the ivory-billed woodpecker and the imperial woodpecker, measuring between nineteen (19) and twenty-four (24) inches, are now extinct.
Behavior
The woodpecker has a very strong and pointed beak which helps it to remove the bark of the trees in order to find its food. They have a very long tongue that measures ten (10) cm. Not all species have some that have a longer tongue. short this tongue contains a sticky saliva which serves to trap insects, some of these species use hammering on the bark of trees that can be heard miles away, to communicate with other woodpeckers it is also a form of ritual of courtship Some of the woodpeckers play drums in the trees as a form of communication between the same species and in turn use it as a courtship rite between them.
What does the woodpecker eat?
As for the nutrition of the woodpecker, it is based on seeds and insects, in certain seasons they harvest acorns and nuts, in the nests that they make in the trees they have a particular habit of storing in perforated holes, which they make in one or more trees, which are called barns, which can have up to more than fifty thousand (50.000) between nuts and acorns in each of them stored.
This harvest is carried out in winter in the thickest part of the trunk, in the dead branches where opening these holes does not cause any damage to the living tree. Woodpeckers use their old holes each year and add more in turn.
acorn harvest
Other foods
Reproduction
The reproduction begins between the months of March to May, at this time both the male and the female are in charge with their beaks to hit and open holes in the tree. Sometimes they use nests that already exist inside the trunk, but often they prefer to make their own nest, which they use to rest and reproduce.
They have a courtship ritual that consists of turning their heads, snapping and hammering their beaks, and they make short, exaggerated low intermittent sounds.
The male and the female are in charge of building the nest with a rhythmic and slow way like the sound of a drum, they simultaneously play the trunk and carry out a courtship where the female mounts the male first before he mounts her.
After having built their nest, they lay their eggs, which are generally two to five white and round eggs, which are easy to find thanks to their white color, allowing them to be found in the dark. This incubation process lasts two weeks.
Birth of the Woodpecker
When they are born they are blind and without feathers, it is generally the male who is in charge of bringing food to the nest, while the female stays with her children, the young usually leave the nest after 25 to 30 days. As in most bird species, they are monogamous. But in particular the species that, for example, is found in western India, the female woodpecker lays eggs from two offspring of different males, in this case it is called polyandry.
What is the habitat of the woodpecker?
These birds are generally found in wooded areas, in tropical and humid forests where there are a large number of trees which serve to find their food and make their nests, as we have already mentioned above. Some of these species require conditions for their home, their habitats are forests and others live in areas that are not highly recommended such as rocky slopes or deserts, but the species that inhabit these areas have adapted to their conditions.
Currently these birds have reached all possible habitats, woodpeckers can be seen in bamboo forests, grasslands, savannahs. The Woodpecker called guilá that has adapted to live in tall cacti, for this species in general the ideal is always to look for an area where there are few trees.
Like all animals, they need water and shelter, so they will always visit fountains, rivers, ponds, water dishes for pets, their own shelter, and when they need it, they have even made openings in the roofs of houses.
Distribution
State of conservation
Studying this bird is wonderful and it is amazing to see it build the hole in the trunk with so much energy and how it gets rid of the splinters of wood, selects some and saves them to later place them inside the nest. There are birds of this species that are more demanding when choosing where to make the nest and they give it various shapes when opening them, some are round, rectangular, pumpkin-shaped, mostly the hole it makes to nest and it is not bigger in size to the width of its own body.
They can also make their nests in houses where the siding is made of cedar, the species that live in the desert make their nests in cacti and some species dig their nests in the ground.
Most of them make this hole to nest, in the mating season, they last pecking or digging for a month and sometimes they make several holes until they find the best one. Sometimes birds are found, which reuse the holes left by the woodpeckers to nest.
Sometimes there are competitions to seize the nests once these competitors are usually mammals, swallows among others, but the woodpecker sometimes defends itself aggressively and makes the nest in small branches where large animals cannot steal their nest.
The male in this species is more useful than the female, compared to other birds, the males help build the hole to nest from 30 to 60 cm, once the hole is opened and after the female lays the eggs, she incubates them for the night so that the female can rest.
Care
Like any animal, it has adapted to survive and even in its evolution to find its food on the ground, they have completely abandoned the trees to the point of making a nest on the ground. This type of terrestrial woodpecker is the one that inhabits the areas rockies of South Africa.
The woodpecker bird species is protected by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and by Birdlife International, which do not allow the hunting of this bird, they cannot approach the area where the distribution is immense, in any of the circumstances and in any of its populations outside this area its hunting is prohibited.
Danger of extinction
Most of these bird species are or are in danger of extinction thanks to deforestation caused by man and are forced to change their habitat. The ivory-billed and imperial woodpecker have been extinct for over thirty (30) years, although current bird studies have resulted in some dispute as to whether this extinction is true. But so far there is no evidence of these species still exist.
woodpecker predators
The main predators of the woodpecker are coyotes, snakes, feral cats, foxes and large birds such as Bald eagle, although there are other species of animals that also feed on the woodpecker.
