Great-spotted woodpecker

Description

The great spotted woodpecker (Dendrocopos major) is a medium-sized woodpecker with 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.This species is found across Eurasia and parts of North Africa.Across most of its range it is resident,but in the north some will migrate if the conifer cone crop fails.Some individuals have a tendency to wander,leading to the recent recolonisation of Ireland and to vagrancy to North America.Great spotted woodpeckers chisel into trees to find food or excavate nest holes,and also drum for contact and territorial advertisement;they have anatomical adaptations to manage the physical stresses from the hammering action.It is similar to the less common lesser spotted woodpecker.The adult great spotted woodpecker is 20–24 cm (7.9–9.4 in) long,weighs 70–98 g (2.5–3.5 oz) and has a 34–39 cm (13–15 in) wingspan.The upperparts are glossy blue-black,with white on the sides of the face and neck.Black lines run from the shoulder to the nape,the base of the bill and about halfway across the breast.There is a large white shoulder patch and the flight feathers are barred with black and white,as is the tail.The underparts are white other than a scarlet lower belly and undertail.The bill is slate-black,the legs greenish-grey and the eye is deep red.Males have a crimson patch on the nape,which is absent from the otherwise similar females.Juvenile birds are less glossy than adults and have a brown tinge to their upperparts and dirty white underparts.Their markings are less well-defined than the adult's and the lower belly is pink rather than red.The crown of the juvenile's head is red,less extensively in young females than males.The various subspecies differ in plumage,the general pattern being that northern forms are larger,heavier-billed and whiter beneath,as predicted by Bergmann's rule,so north Eurasian D.m.major and D.m.kamtschaticus are large and strikingly white,whereas D.m.hispanicus in Iberia and D.m.harterti in Corsica and Sardinia are somewhat smaller and have darker underparts.D.m.canariensis and D.m.thanneri in the Canary Islands are similar to the Iberian race but have contrasting white flanks.In Morocco,D.m.mauritanus is pale below with red in the centre of its breast,and birds breeding at higher altitudes are larger and darker than those lower in the hills.D.m.numidus in Algeria and Tunisia is very distinctive,with a breast band of red-tipped black feathers.Caspian D.m.poelzami is small,relatively long-billed and has brown underparts.D.m.japonicus of Japan has less white on its shoulders but more in its wings.The two Chinese forms,D.m.cabanisi and D.m.stresemanni,have brownish heads and underparts,and often some red on the breast.Both races have increasingly dark underparts towards the south of their respective ranges.The great spotted woodpecker is similar to some other species in its genus.The Syrian woodpecker lacks its relative's black cheek bar and has whiter underparts and paler red underparts,although juvenile great spotted woodpeckers often have an incomplete cheek bar,so can potentially be misidentified as Syrian.The white-winged woodpecker has a far more extensive white wing patch than the great spotted woodpecker.The Sind woodpecker is very similar to the Syrian species,and can be distinguished from great spotted woodpecker in the same way.