Appearance: Black woodpecker, or zhelna - quite large bird, whose body size is 40-50 centimeters, and weighs about 250-500 grams. It is the closest relative of the grey-haired woodpecker. It has a slender body, the neck is long and thin, and the head is relatively small. A feature of this bird is the presence of a kind of bright red “cap” on the head of males, and the female has just a red spot on the back of her head. The beak is a prominent chisel, long and very strong. The wings are long and rounded (span up to 70 cm), and the tail, although also long, is, on the contrary, pointed. The plumage is soft and thick. The color is dark, but it looks very nice. Almost the entire body, along with the tail and wings, is painted brilliant black. Females are also black, but unlike males, they do not have a shine. The beak is yellowish-gray. Young birds have a loose plumage, and more dull.
Food: Most often they eat ants, less often - other insects, larvae, pupae, beetles. They get their food with the help of their strong, long beak from under the bark of trees. They also often pick up insects from the ground. Their sticky tongue also helps them catch ants and other insects. These birds can dig into anthills for many hours in search of large ants.
Reproduction: The black woodpecker is a monogamous bird and creates a pair for the rest of its life. During the mating season, the male taps dry knots with his beak, which creates a vibrating sound that attracts females. During this period, males, when meeting, look irritably at each other and threaten with their beaks. They start nesting at the end of winter, making their own hollows in aspen, pine, barely, birch. Both partners take part in building the nest and sometimes spend half a day on it. Black woodpeckers prefer to settle every year in the same place, and if their hollow is occupied, then the male kicks out the guests. The clutch consists of 3-6 small eggs, which both parents take turns incubating for two weeks. Chicks are born weak and completely helpless. Both parents feed their young, and after 3-4 weeks the chicks leave the nest.
Habitat: Most black woodpeckers are sedentary, and are widespread in Eurasia, many of them are found in Western Europe. They prefer deciduous, coniferous or mixed forests, where there are many shrubs.
Interesting fact: These birds, which are part of the woodpecker order, have rather tough skin that protects them from insect bites, especially from carpenter ants, which they love to eat. Also, the skin is not covered with down, and the feathers are stiff and pointed at the ends. The points at the end of the tail serve as a reliable support for this bird, while it hollows out a hollow.
| Picidae |
|
Woodpeckers ( Picinae)
Vertinecks ( Jinginae) Woodpeckers ( Picumninae)
|
Woodpeckers(also woodpeckers, lat. Picidae) - a family of birds of the woodpecker order.
Includes woodpecker subfamilies ( Picinae), woodpeckers ( Picumninae) and vertices ( Jinginae).
Body length from 8 to 56 cm.
They live mainly in forests, on trees, so the legs of woodpeckers are short, with long fingers and sharp claws.
Zhelna, or black woodpecker
Support when climbing trees are well-developed tail wings. Woodpeckers have a strong beak, with which they, in search of food or when building a nest, hollow out bark and wood; the exception is the vertices, whose weak beak does not allow chiselling wood.
With the help of a long tongue located in a special cavity of the skull and passing through the nostril, woodpeckers can extract insects from the passages in the wood. Woodpeckers often feed on ants in anthills, tree seeds (usually in winter) and berries.
Some species of woodpeckers live in the desert; they look for food on the ground, and live in holes or among stones, as well as in giant cacti.
In the laying of woodpeckers - usually 3-7 eggs, rarely more.
The chicks hatch naked.
Types of woodpeckers
In total, there are about 220 species of woodpeckers; they are distributed almost everywhere, they are not found only in Australia, Oceania and Madagascar.
Almost all species are sedentary or nomadic. Woodpeckers rarely fly and, as a rule, for short distances. Woodpeckers usually live alone.
The most common types of woodpeckers in Russia
- Great spotted woodpecker
- Wryneck
- Zelna
- green woodpecker
- grey-haired woodpecker
- three-toed woodpecker
Funny about woodpeckers
- One of the 2006 Ig Nobel Prizes (Wikinews) in ornithology was awarded to a California researcher for his work "Why doesn't a woodpecker have a headache?".
The scientist found that the woodpecker has a highly developed shock absorber that protects it from headaches.
Woodpecker as a curse word
A woodpecker is often called a person who "gets", that is, interferes with life, as well as just a person who is considered stupid or has done something stupid. An example of word usage: “Well, you are a woodpecker!” .
Links
Black woodpecker (Zhelna) - arboreal orderly of the forest
This large large woodpecker lives in the vast territory of Eurasia - from the Pyrenees to Japan. It is distinguished from other woodpeckers by the charcoal color of the feathers and the “red cap” on the head.
Compared to other woodpeckers, the yellow woodpecker is one of the largest species.
The length of the body from the top of the head to the tail in adult males reaches half a meter. The largest individuals weigh almost 500 g. The wingspan reaches a length of 70-80 cm. It has a long and very strong beak, capable of breaking through hard coniferous trees.
Zhelna inhabits coniferous forests.
The great black woodpecker is yellow. Report with photos and video
In Ukraine, Belarus and Russia, they can easily be found in pine forests - these birds are very numerous and are not afraid of human presence. On the contrary, people for Zhelny are of great interest, bordering on curiosity. Woodpeckers can watch a person walking through the forest for hours, flying from tree to tree.
They also live in city parks.
It is not so easy to find this black bird in a dark spruce or pine forest, but you can find it by the sounds that are heard hundreds of meters when the bell is knocking on a tree.
In the trunk of trees, she extracts insects - bark beetles, sawflies and other pests. They form the basis of her diet. Often in the forest you can find trees completely hollowed out with yellow.
If a black woodpecker cannot get an insect out of a tree trunk when the bug is very deep in the trunk, then it uses its long tongue, which can protrude 5 cm. The tip of the tongue is sticky, so the prey itself sticks to it.
In addition to pests, it feeds on forest ants. Sometimes he, like a bear, ruins anthills and eats their inhabitants and larvae.
In addition to pest control, the woodpecker performs another important “social” function for forest dwellers - it builds housing.
Yes, most of the hollows in the forest are hollowed out with yellow. Subsequently, squirrels, martens, solongoi and numerous birds settle in them.
Most often, a black woodpecker builds its own housing on deciduous trees, at a height of at least 9 meters.
The construction of the hollow begins in the spring, when woodpeckers have found a mate and are expecting offspring.
In some cases, they do not build a new nest for their future chicks, but use last year's one. When other animals have already managed to populate it, the zhelna can drive them out of there. Then he throws out all the garbage from the hollow, ennobles.
It takes a lot of time to create one hollow - from 10 days to two weeks.
Moreover, a couple hammers a tree all daylight hours - at least 12 hours a day. This difficult task is taken over by the male. The female mainly watches how her cavalier works. From the ground, the hollow is quite difficult to see. The diameter of the “entrance”, or, as it is correctly called, “nothole”, is about 10 cm. Inside the hollow is quite spacious. The distance from the floor to the notch is 40-50 cm, the diameter of the “housing” depends on the thickness of the tree, but not less than 17 cm.
The litter in the nest is sawdust, which remained after the “construction” of the hollow.
The female usually lays 3-5 white eggs with a yellowish tinge. After 2 weeks, chicks appear.
For a whole month, parents feed the chicks.
They bring them insect larvae, bark beetles, etc., which they get under the bark of trees. Zelna chicks are very voracious, so the parents work from the earliest hours of dawn until the onset of evening twilight.
After 27-30 days, the grown chicks fly out of the nest and make their first flight in their life to the nearest branch.
Now they have an independent life. But until autumn, the cubs stay close to their parents. As soon as the leaves begin to fall, the first night frosts come, the black woodpeckers chase away their offspring and they scatter through the forest in search of their site, where they will live for the rest of their lives.
Zhelna leads a diurnal lifestyle, keeps to its forest all its life, most of the year they lead a solitary lifestyle.
In the wild, life lasts about 6-7 years.
Appearance and behavior. The most common among our woodpeckers, the size of a large blackbird (body length 22–23 cm, wingspan 42–45 cm, weight 50–100 g).
Description. The plumage is black and white. On the folded wings of a sitting bird, a large oval white spot.
The undertail is bright red. The back of the neck, back, rump, wing coverts are black. Tail feathers with a transverse pattern, while white prevails on the outer pairs of tail feathers, and the central pair is entirely black.
The cheeks, sides of the neck, chest and belly are white, sometimes with a cream or brownish tint. Flight feathers are black with rows of white spots. Black "whiskers" are connected by continuous stripes with black plumage of the back and nape. The male has a red spot on the back of the head, the top of the female's head is black. There are no seasonal variations in plumage.
In young birds, the color of the plumage is dimmer, the crown of the head is red in front, dark streaks are more or less pronounced on the sides. Characteristic features that distinguish adults from other spotted woodpeckers are large oval white spots on folded wings, black jumpers behind white cheeks, the absence of a solid red cap and black spots on the sides of the belly.
Voice. The song is a short (no more than 1 second) and continuous "drum" roll, rising towards the end. When excited, it emits a loud and sharp cry of "kick". Sometimes these screams merge into a "hysterical" "kick-kick-kick ...", comparable to chirring.
Distribution, status. It is very widely distributed in the northern part of the Palearctic from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.
To the north it penetrates to the border of woody vegetation. Inhabits most of European Russia (absent only in treeless areas). Common. Leads a predominantly settled way of life, in the north of the range migrates to the south for the winter.
Lifestyle. Inhabits forests of different composition and age, clearings and burnt areas with separate standing trees or curtains, parks, gardens, cemeteries, etc. The hollow suits in trees with soft wood: aspen, less often alder, birch. Often renews last year's hollows or populates hollows of other woodpecker species.
Redstart - a small bird with a red tail
The hollow is built mainly by the male. Both parents incubate the clutch and feed the chicks. The chicks hatch naked and blind.
Omnivorous. In summer it feeds on ants, beetles, caterpillars, especially during outbreaks of their numbers, and other insects.
In winter, the main food is spruce and pine seeds, which it extracts from cones. For this, the cones are placed in special places- "forges": crevices and other niches in the wood, usually where a trunk or large branch is broken, at the top of wooden poles, and in other places where the cone can be tightly clamped. In spring, it drinks maple and birch sap, punching horizontal rows of small holes in the bark.
In settlements, it visits landfills, can destroy the nests of small birds.
When feeding, he uses different techniques - chiselling, pecking, peeling the bark and others. Breeds once per year.
Differs in high activity and mobility. In autumn and winter it shows strict solitary territoriality.
Spotted Woodpecker or Great Spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocopos major)
Other species in this family:
Zelna is the largest European woodpecker. The color of the yellow is coal-black, for which it is called the black woodpecker. Zhelna is a very shy bird. Bird report with video and photo
Detachment- Woodpeckers
Family— Woodpeckers
Genus/Species– Dryocopus martius
Basic data:
DIMENSIONS
Length: 45 cm.
Wingspan: 66-75 cm.
Weight: 300-350 g.
BREEDING
Puberty: from 1 year.
Nesting period: usually March-June.
Number of eggs: 2-6.
Incubation: 12-14 days.
Feeding chicks: 27-28 days.
LIFESTYLE
Habits: black woodpecker yellow (see photo) - a shy bird; nests in hollows.
Sounds: loud “fru-fru-fru”, less often “keee”.
Food: Insects, mainly carpenter ants.
Lifespan: According to banding, the maximum age is 7 years.
RELATED SPECIES
Zhelna white-bellied, which lives in South and East Asia.
It is not difficult to recognize a male zhelny by a bright red cap, and a female by a red spot on the back of her head. Zhelny hollow out hollows with oval or rectangular holes in living and dead trees.
Other birds often nest in these niches, for example, some species of owls and the bruise dove.
WHAT DOES IT FEED
Zhelna feeds mainly on ants.
The bird prefers large red-breasted carpenter ants, but does not disdain other species, for which it often descends to the ground. In addition to ants, the diet of the great black woodpecker includes various insects, their larvae and pupae.
On living and dead trees, the zhelna looks for beetles, which it takes out from under the bark with a long beak. In search of food, the black woodpecker rakes the turf and tears the bark from dead trees.
The bird visits anthills and catches insects with its sticky tongue. Zhelna loves large ants so much that she can spend hours digging in an anthill, extracting from it not only ants, but also their larvae.
Having found a tree, very damaged by some larvae, the woodpecker knocks the bark off it with blows of its beak and pulls out insects. In some regions, 99 percent of the diet consists of ants.
In other areas, the woodpecker's menu, along with ants, includes larvae of butterflies and other flying insects. In winter, he prefers ants and bees, extracting them from their hiding places.
BREEDING
Adults are solitary.
In March, when the mating season of black woodpeckers begins, the male attracts the attention of the female by banging his beak on dry knots that vibrate well. The cry of the males - a loud "fre-fre-fre" - is heard through the forest at a great distance. Less commonly, males make the sound "keee", reminiscent of a purr. After pairing, black woodpeckers can be observed flying from tree to tree and chasing each other on a tree trunk, moving in a spiral. Birds fly one by one and drum on a tree, then "bow".
Males, when meeting with irritation, nod their heads and threaten each other with their beaks. The male of the yellow invites the chosen one to his "estate". Here the female inspects the hollows and chooses the most convenient one. If the hollow is unfinished, the birds get to work together.
Zhelny usually hollow out several hollows in which they alternately sleep. For 3-4 weeks, the bile gouges a hollow up to 40 cm deep and up to 22 cm wide. After the nest is built, the woodpeckers mate, and soon the female lays 2-6 eggs.
Parents incubate the clutch alternately, changing approximately every 2 hours. Since incubation does not last long, the chicks are born rather weak: each of them weighs only 9 g. At first, feeding helpless chicks is not easy for parents, and after 10 days the chicks energetically demand food. Parents take care of the chicks that have left the nest for a long time.
WHERE Dwells
Zhelny, or black woodpeckers, live in almost all forests of Europe and Asia.
They inhabit both deciduous and coniferous, as well as mixed forests, with a particular preference for untouched extensive woodlands. Everywhere, the zhelny keep to areas overgrown with old tall forests.
Black woodpecker: Yellow bird (lat. Dryocopus martius)
Very often these woodpeckers are found on the sites of former forest fires.
Woodpeckers usually nest in beech forests and pine forests, but their hollows can also be seen in the trunks of spruces, junipers and larches. In the presence of trees that are convenient for nesting, yellowbells nest even in parks. These shy and very cautious birds are frightened by the slightest rustling.
They rarely nest near human dwellings.
The presence of a black woodpecker is evidenced from afar by a frequent knock on a dry branch, as well as its loud sounds. Zhelnu can be heard more often than seen. The black woodpecker deftly climbs tree trunks, clinging to the bark with strong claws - they especially help the bird when looking for food.
While hollowing out a hollow and hunting for insects, the black woodpecker clings to the bark with its claws and rests on a stiff tail. Looking for food, the yellow woodpecker constantly flies from one tree to another, while making characteristic cries.
- Zhelna drinks the rain water that accumulates in the depressions on the bark of old trees and in their hollows.
- The black woodpecker was observed in the mountains of Tibet at an altitude of 4000 m above sea level.
- Under the feathers of an adult woodpecker, there is no fluff. The feathers of this woodpecker are very stiff, pointed at the ends. The hard tail creates a reliable support during the gouging of the hollow.
The awn of individual integumentary feathers, composed in the form of a tile, is also rigid.
- The nostrils of most species of woodpeckers are covered with tufts of feathers, which creates protection from wood dust and dust getting inside.
- The jellyfish, compared to other birds, has very tough skin, which protects the bird from insect bites, in particular carpenter ants, on which it mainly feeds.
- The zhelna usually spends from 10 to 17 days to hollow out the hollow.
- At the end of a long tongue, the gall has 4-5 pairs of needle-shaped taste buds.
That's what insects stick to. Thus, the woodpecker extracts them from the holes in the bark.
DESCRIPTION
adult bird: the size of a crow; the plumage is black, the eyes and beak are lighter.
The male has a red top of the head, and the female has a red nape.
Hollow: located at a height of 7-15 m from the ground, spacious, with a characteristic oval or rectangular opening.
- Zhelny habitat
WHERE Dwells
Zhelna lives in Eurasia everywhere: from the north of Spain and the Scandinavian Peninsula to Japan.
PROTECTION AND PRESERVATION
Zhelna is very shy and cautious. Preference is given not to coniferous, but to deciduous forests. The bird is distributed throughout its range.
Great black woodpecker (Zelna). Video (00:03:00)
Biryulevsky arboretum, August 2013.
Great black woodpecker-Zhelna.2.03.12. Video (00:02:16)
This beautiful black woodpecker was found in a park in the south-east of Moscow.
Every day this spring of 2012 we went for a walk and heard beautiful, straight from the rainforest, singing. Always wondering who is this? Tracked down and saw that it was a big black woodpecker Zhelna. It was very high, our video camera is not perfect, but nevertheless we managed to film how the woodpecker knocks on the trunk, loudly and invitingly. It's a pity we couldn't film his singing.
Woodpecker Woodpecker, he is a black woodpecker, he is yellow. Video (00:03:44)
Elektrostal woodpecker squeaks and picks a tree
Black woodpecker (zhelna). Video (00:03:47)
08/12/2012, Nizhny Novgorod region, Bor district
Black Woodpecker Woodpecker Dryocopus martius. Video (00:00:46)
Black Woodpecker. Our largest woodpecker is the yellow woodpecker or black woodpecker (Dryocopus martius).
The amusing appearance of the bird is complemented by its manner of peeking out from behind a tree (with such a long neck, this is not difficult).
Zhelny is characterized by well-developed vocal communication. His voice is very harsh. In flight, the jelna emits an uneven trill, and while sitting on a tree - drawling cries. The voice of the zhelny can be heard almost all year round. In the spring, during the current period, this ‘song’ accompanies the drumming. During the incubation of eggs, the male and female exchange vocal signals, replacing each other in the nest. When feeding the chicks, the parents announce their approach from afar, and the hungry offspring answer them with a deafening din.
By nature, she is a loner. It lives mainly in old mixed or coniferous forests. On its territory, the zhelna has up to a dozen hollows, but at the same time actively uses 2-3. Most often, aspen is chosen for the hollow, somewhat less often - pine.
Usually the hollow is located at a height of 10-20 m above the ground, but sometimes it can also be at a height of 3 m. - up to half a meter.
Ants play a significant role in the diet of the black woodpecker. Almost exclusively with ants, he also feeds the chicks. Another notable component of its menu are various bark beetles, lumberjacks, borers, barbels, horntails and other forest pests that live in wood. In search of these insects, the zhelna crushes old rotten stumps, clears the bark and crushes dry trees affected by pests.
As the largest and strongest woodpecker, it can reach insects that others cannot reach. And it feeds on insects all year round, only slightly diversifying its table with berries. The current at the zhelny begins in early spring. Already in early to mid-April, you can hear the characteristic drum roll (almost 20 beats per second!) And screams. Knocking and screaming both males and females. There is no litter in the hollow, the bottom is covered only with chips, on which the female lays 3-5 white eggs.
Incubation lasts very little even for woodpeckers - 12-13 days. The chicks live in the hollow for about a month and stay with their parents for about a month after leaving the nest (somewhere in mid-June). Both parents incubate and feed the chicks.
Protvino Moscow region Russia
The woodpecker is black. Zhelna. Brateevograd.wmv. Video (00:00:51)
In the Maryinskaya and Brateevskaya floodplains, they are found during autumn movements along the banks of the Moskva River.
Yellow woodpecker was observed near the mouth of the Plintovka river. There is an interesting ravine, which is chosen by almost all types of woodpeckers in the area.
Zhelna is a black woodpecker. Video (00:01:04)
Svetlogorsk, Belarus, 08.09.2012.
Zhelna is a black woodpecker. Video (00:00:14)
Dryocopus Martius Black Woodpecker Zhelna Moscow. Video (00:01:22)
Black woodpecker. Video (00:01:26)
Zhelna, knowing the carnivorous inclinations of the squirrel, attacked her when she climbed to the very top of the pine tree. After a noisy fight, which, unfortunately, was hidden by the branches, the woodpecker sat on a nearby tree and controlled the actions of the squirrel for a long time.
He probably has a nest around here somewhere.
Although, of course, modern people often have a slightly different association with amazing forest birds - woodpeckers - annoying and annoying in some human characters is often compared with our today's feathered hero. In fact, woodpeckers are not at all annoying birds, but very useful ones, it’s not for nothing that our observant ancestors called the woodpecker the “forest doctor”, in fairy tales he often acts as a kind, stubborn and hardworking character, however, he is like that in nature, a real "friend of the trees" After all, tirelessly pecking them with his beak, at the same time he cleans the trees from various insects harmful to them: termites, aphids, etc.
Woodpecker: description, structure, characteristics. What does a woodpecker look like?
The woodpecker family includes a large group of birds known for their ability to peck trees with their beaks. Close relatives of woodpeckers are also toucans, beards and honeyguides.
The average body length of a woodpecker is 25 cm, average weight woodpecker - 100 g, although, of course, there are exceptions, so there are more large species woodpeckers, such as the American royal woodpecker, which is almost 60 cm long and weighs 600 g. And the smallest golden woodpecker is almost similar in size to, its length is only 8 cm and weighs 7 g.
The body of the woodpecker seems to be somewhat elongated, thanks to the average length of the tail and the head, continuing the length of the body. The woodpecker's beak is chisel-shaped, it is also sharp and durable. The nostrils of woodpeckers are protected by special villi that prevent wood shavings from getting inside during chiselling. As well as the skull of woodpeckers, it has a special porous structure that protects the brain of birds from concussion.
The wings of a woodpecker are of medium length and, moreover, sharp, such a structure of their wings helps these forest birds to maneuver between trees with ease. The wingspan of a woodpecker is 45-49 cm.
Woodpecker in flight.
The paws of the woodpecker are short and four-fingered (with the exception of the three-toed woodpecker), two fingers point forward and two backwards, a similar structure of the woodpecker's paws helps it to confidently stay on the vertical surfaces of trees and move along them.
The plumage of the woodpecker is rigid and fits snugly to the body. The color of woodpeckers is very diverse, everything depends on the type of a particular bird, there are woodpeckers with chess black and white flowers, motley, red, golden.
Where does the woodpecker live
Woodpeckers live almost all over the globe, with the exception of Antarctica and Australia. And since woodpeckers are forest birds, they live, respectively, in forest areas, whether it be taiga or tropical rainforests. Although there are species of woodpeckers that, instead of trees, may well settle, for example, in large cacti.
How long does a woodpecker live
The life expectancy of woodpeckers depends on their species, the largest long-liver among woodpeckers is the sovereign woodpecker, this representative of the woodpecker family can live up to 30 years. The most common spotted woodpecker lives on average 10-11 years. There are species of woodpeckers (for example, green woodpecker) whose lifespan is no more than 7 years.
What does a woodpecker eat and why does a woodpecker knock on a tree
In fact, the woodpecker's nutrition and its "brand" woodpecker are directly related to each other. Yes, woodpeckers get their own food in such a simple way. The basis of their nutrition is various insects and larvae that live in the bowels of trees: termites, ants, aphids, bark beetles. Moreover, what is interesting is that such activity of woodpeckers also benefits trees, because these birds save them from pests.
Woodpeckers always unmistakably choose such diseased trees infected with pests as trees for chiselling, which is why they called our feathered hero the “forest doctor”. How do woodpeckers recognize such trees? The fact is that nature has endowed these birds with very subtle hearing, and woodpeckers are able to hear the slightest creak made by the stings of pests inside the trees.
But back to the nutrition of woodpeckers, in addition to harmful insects, woodpeckers are not averse to eating berries, plant seeds, nuts extracted from cones of coniferous trees.
Enemies of woodpeckers
The woodpeckers themselves, in turn, can become prey for some others. birds of prey: , falcons, owls and . Their enemies in natural conditions also are snakes, martens and some other predators.
Woodpecker lifestyle
Woodpeckers are sedentary birds, that is, they live mainly in the same territory. They often live alone and only in the nesting period are kept in pairs male + female.
Woodpeckers spend most of their time studying trees for the presence of insects that are so delicious for these birds. Flying from tree to tree, the woodpecker first sits down, and then gradually begins to rise up. Woodpeckers practically do not descend to the ground, in general, they do not feel comfortable on horizontal surfaces, where a vertical pose on a tree is more familiar to them, by the way, in this position, woodpeckers even sleep at night.
The means of communication for woodpeckers is a drum roll beaten out by their beaks, it (the shot) also serves to mark the boundaries of the territory of a particular woodpecker and to attract a partner in time mating season.
Types of woodpeckers, photos and names
In total, there are more than 200 species of woodpeckers in nature, below we will describe the most interesting of them.
Despite its name, the large sharp-winged woodpecker is not so big, its length is 14-16 cm, weight 20-30 grams. It has a variegated color, the males have several red feathers on the sides. Lives in Eastern and South-East Asia.
He is a large motley woodpecker, is the most common representative of the woodpecker family. It lives in a wide geographical area, it is almost the whole of Eurasia, from the forests of England to the forests of Japan. These woodpeckers are also introduced in our Ukrainian forests. They can be distinguished by color, the spotted woodpecker has black and white colors, which are combined with a bright red undertail, which gives the bird a mottled appearance. Some woodpeckers of this species also have a red head, such a “little red riding hood”.
Initially, the Syrian woodpecker was distributed exclusively in the Middle East, but in the Middle Ages these birds penetrated both the Balkans and Eastern Europe (including these woodpeckers also live on the territory of Ukraine). By its appearance and habits, it is very similar to the common woodpecker, it differs only in a number of small differences: a longer beak, on the sides of the belly, the Syrian woodpecker has developed mottles. Also, the common spotted woodpecker has two white spots between the eye and the shoulder, while the Syrian woodpecker has these two spots merged into one large one.
This is another woodpecker that lives in the forest zone of Eurasia. It is of medium size, its body length is 26-31 cm and its weight is 100-130 g. It also differs from other woodpeckers by a slightly longer neck and an angular head. The upper part of the back of these woodpeckers is black, the lower part is white. Also, the males have a red cap on the smut, while the females have a black one.
This woodpecker is distinguished by its reddish belly coloration, hence its name. Also known as the red-necked woodpecker. This type of woodpecker lives in Southeast Asia. It is a very small representative of the woodpecker family, its body length is 200-250 mm, weight 50-70 g.
Black woodpecker (Zelna)
Also known as the great black woodpecker, one of the largest representatives of woodpeckers, its body length is 42-49 cm, with a weight of 250-450 g. It also lives in the forest zone of Eurasia, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific. This woodpecker is very easy to identify by appearance: a bird with black plumage and a red cap on its head and will be a black woodpecker.
Woodpecker breeding
The mating season for woodpeckers begins in the spring. During this period, males begin to actively lure females with their trills. When their pairs are already formed, the birds begin to build a nesting cavity, and they work in turn. The place where their chicks are destined to be born is carefully masked by branches from predators.
The female woodpecker has from 3 to 7 eggs, which she incubates for 15 days. Then chicks, small woodpeckers, begin to hatch from them, they are completely helpless: naked, blind and deaf. But already during the first month they are covered with feathers, begin to see clearly and very much even squeal. While not yet able to fly, they can nevertheless actively run along the trunk. A year later, woodpeckers become sexually mature adult birds.
- The great spotted woodpecker is able to knock on the hollow with an amazing speed - 20 beats per second.
- In 2006, one of the Ig Nobel Prizes (the opposite of Nobel Prizes, these prizes are awarded for unnecessary and meaningless scientific discoveries) was awarded to an ornithologist from California for his work “Why the woodpecker does not have a headache.”
- A woodpecker is capable of eating 1000 ants at one time.
woodpecker video
And in conclusion, we offer you to look at the woodpecker in the wild, listen to its trill.
The woodpecker family or woodpeckers occupy a central place in the woodpecker order. characteristic feature for all members of the family there is a chisel-shaped beak, which helps them to hollow out insects in the bark and core of trees. Almost all birds of the woodpecker family are sedentary, and in general they fly extremely reluctantly. One of the largest representatives of woodpeckers is the yellow or black woodpecker. They also have one of the strongest and strongest beaks in the woodpecker family, which allows them to gouge hollows, both with oval and rectangular edges, in any tree, often these hollows become the habitat of other inhabitants of the forest.
The black woodpecker is considered the brightest representative of the genus Zhelny. In total, this genus includes seven species of birds living in Eurasia and Northern and South America. Some of the species are listed in the Red Book. Common to all species of yellow is a characteristic uneven flight with uneven wing beats.
Zhelna or black woodpecker, male.
Zhelna: male on the left and female on the right. 
Geography of residence
You can see these amazing birds only on the territory of Eurasia. Their habitat is forests and forest-steppes located from the northern and eastern parts of the Iberian Peninsula to Kamchatka, the coast of the Sea of Japan and Sakhalin Island. The northernmost point where these birds were seen is the Arctic Circle region on the Scandinavian Peninsula.
In the west and south of Europe, in Asia Minor, the black woodpecker populations are very scattered and, as a rule, are tied to flat coniferous and mixed forests. The largest population was seen on Greater Caucasus and in Transcaucasia, along the coast of the Caspian Sea. Of the Western European countries, only Italy can "boast" of a fairly large population of black woodpeckers - about 3,000 pairs. In Eastern Europe, birds are widespread in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine.
Black woodpeckers lead a sedentary lifestyle, however, sometimes in winter, birds can make small flights outside their biotopes. They prefer to settle in mature tall forests, usually coniferous and mixed, less often - broad-leaved. It can settle both in continuous taiga massifs and on small "islands" of the forest, sometimes even in the middle of the steppe. Woodpeckers often settle in clearings or areas with diseased or rotten trees, they can often be found in forests after fires.
In European mountain forests, black woodpeckers prefer mixed forests with fir, beech plantations and woodlands dominated by larch, spruce and cedar.
Black woodpeckers can also live at a sufficient elevation, so in the Alps they can be found at an altitude of about 2000 meters above sea level. The woodpecker can also settle in the forests, where people often walk, where you can meet a person, this bird is not shy. It is for this reason that the zhelna often settles in the park area and in the squares, even if there are many people there. One pair of black woodpeckers can occupy up to 400 hectares of forest.
The female is yellow at a rotten stump. 
Appearance
Black woodpeckers are quite impressive in size, second only to a rook, but unlike the latter, woodpeckers have a more elegant and slender physique, an elongated thin neck and long tail feathers. The length of the black woodpecker reaches 50 cm, while its weight can be 250-180 grams, and the wingspan varies from 63 to 81 cm.
In a sexually mature male, all feathers are painted black with a sheen, the only exception is the upper part of the head - it has a bright red spot, a kind of “cap”, which starts at the base of the beak and ends at the back of the head.
In females, the plumage color is also black, however, unlike males, the feathers have a brownish tint, and the shine is completely absent, the red “cap” on the head is very small - it covers only the back of the head.
The beak of a gray bird is very strong and strong, elongated and absolutely straight and straight, the mandible is yellow. Paws and legs are gray-blue. The eyes of the black woodpecker are quite large and very expressive, the color of the iris is white or yellow.
Young individuals practically do not differ from sexually mature ones, the difference is only in looser plumage and plumage color is more matte, without shine. In immature individuals, the chin has a gray tint, and the red “cap” may be completely absent or inconspicuous, the beak in young ones is more pointed and painted in a pale pink color.
The bile is characterized by a special shape of the skull - the presence of large occipital ridges, which other woodpeckers do not have, their presence is explained by very frequent turns of the head to the sides.
Zhelna gets food, from the photo you can imagine the force of impact of her beak. 
The whole stump is in the traces of the work of a black woodpecker. 
Subspecies
In the black woodpecker, ornithologists distinguish two subspecies - the nominative, more common and Asian subspecies, which lives in southwestern China and Tibet. The latter subspecies is characterized by a richer and deeper black color in color, and the birds themselves are usually larger. The nominate subspecies is characterized by an increase in the size of birds from west to east.
Voice
Black woodpeckers are very noisy and noisy birds, they can be heard at a great distance. In order to attract attention, they use high-pitched sounds, and drumming appears in the songs during the talk.
Nutrition and behavior
Black woodpeckers are solitary birds, they spend almost the whole year alone, and only in the mating season do they look for a mate. They usually settle in areas with dry and fallen trees and rotten stumps; in rare cases, birds can also live in small clearings and single trees in the field. Black woodpeckers can often be found in tall forests, especially in aspen forests, since these trees are best suited for building a nest, less often nesting hollows can be made in pine, birch, spruce or oak. The hollow has an oblong-oval shape.
Zhelna feeds on insects, preferring ants and various beetles. Plant foods are extremely rare in the bird's diet, these are the fruits of trees, berries, seeds of coniferous trees. The favorite delicacy of black woodpeckers are precisely ants - red-breasted and red-bellied, black carpenter ants, red and garden, as well as brown forest ants. They look for these insects in wood, or ruin anthills, where they eat not only adults, but also pupae. The tongue of the black woodpecker is not very long - about 5.5 cm, however, thanks to sticky saliva, it easily gets insects.
To search for food, zhelny can crush rotten and rotten stumps, remove bark from rotten trees. If it is not possible to find ants, then the yellow can eat both pupae and larvae of other insects:
- barbel,
- bark beetles,
- sapwood,
- goldfish,
- sawyers,
- horntail,
- ichneumonids.
In one day, the zhelna can eat up to 600 different larvae; in winter, bees appear in its diet. Due to its feeding behavior, the zhelna is an important "forest orderly", and besides, thanks to its hollows, many birds and small forest animals find a home for themselves.
Birds have natural enemies, these are martens, lynx and black grouse. Humans also cause harm to birds, in addition to hunting black woodpeckers, people harm these birds by deforestation.
Male black woodpecker on a stump. 
reproduction
The mating season for the black woodpecker starts in March. Birds become sexually mature at 11-12 months. The male makes every effort to attract the female - taps his beak on dry knots, screams loudly. After a pair is formed, the male and female begin to fly one after another from branch to branch and chase each other while running along the tree trunk. A pair is formed for one mating season, but often in next year pairs match again.
The male prepares a hollow for future offspring in advance, even before he creates a pair for himself, it will take him from 10 to 14 days. In rare cases, a pair may form even before the male has hollowed out the nest, if this happens, the partner will prepare the nest, and the female will watch from the side. After the male finds his chosen one, he “invites” her to his dwelling, in the event that the hollow has not yet been completed, both will undertake the improvement. The same nest can be used several times in a row, if suddenly the hollow is occupied by other birds, then the woodpecker will drive out the uninvited guests. The hollow of the birds is large - the depth is about 40-60 cm, the diameter is 20 cm. The hollow is practically not lined inside, pieces of wood can become the only litter.
The yellowling lays only one, in rare cases, if the nest has been plundered, then the female will lay her eggs again. The female usually lays 4-5, rarely 3-7 eggs. Eggs are white and oblong in shape. Incubation begins with the appearance of the first egg, both parents incubate the offspring in turn, the chicks are born synchronously after 13-14 days, the weight of the babies is not more than 10 grams.
Both parents are responsible for feeding the babies; they bring ants and their pupae to their children. For three weeks the babies are in the nest, they behave very noisily, all the time they try to look out of the hollow and demand food, while their parents are absolutely silent near the nest. Already after 26-27 days, the chicks become winged, but at first they stay closer to their parents, who will feed them for some time, and only at the end of August they will finally fly away from them.
Average life expectancy is 7-8 years.
The male is yellow and the chicks. 
- The record of life expectancy belongs to a woman from Finland - 14 years.
- Zhelna drinks only water, which accumulates in the recesses of the bark or in the hollow.
- In Tibet, the zhelna can live at an altitude of 4000 m above sea level.
- Black woodpeckers have no down under their feathers, their feathers are very stiff and pointed at the ends.
- The nostrils are covered with tufts of feathers, which protects them from dust and tree dust.
- These woodpeckers have very tough skin that protects the birds from insect bites.
- The bird can work on gouging the nest for 10-13 hours in a row.
Belongs to the family of woodpeckers, distinguished by the color of feathers and size.
Appearance
Zhelna is the largest of its kind, weighs about 300 grams, can reach up to 500 and is about 50 cm long. The head is large, the neck is elegant.
You can distinguish between a woodpecker and a female by a red spot. In males it is on top, it looks like a hat, and in ladies it is on the back of the head. The plumage is coal-colored, shiny on the back.
Young woodpecker photo.
The beak of a black woodpecker is a yellow chisel, the paws are gray, even bluish. The eyes are large, the iris is bright. The wings are rounded. The nostrils are protected by tufts of villi so that dust and sawdust do not get in when chiselling.
Habitat. area
The woodpecker inhabits all of Eurasia. From Kamchatka to the Sea of Japan and the Sea of Okhotsk, in Asia (Sakhalin, the Caucasus, Siberia). Unless they are found far to the south.
The woodpecker prefers to nest in coniferous, deciduous and mixed forests with old trees, often occupy burnt forest areas. In Belarus, I inhabit pine forests.
Lifestyle, nutrition
The bird migrates but does not fly long distances. All day long he can build his hollows. Since it takes her about two weeks. Almost all of the woody living space in the forest is her work.
Tricks of a black woodpecker photo.
The woodpecker chooses fairly tall trees, feeds on insects, caterpillar pupae, and ants. Gouging about 450 pieces a day. You can even see a tree completely without bark.
The woodpecker eats its prey with its tongue, which protrudes 5 cm beyond the beak. The woodpecker is moistened with a sticky secret, it also has taste buds that help to quickly catch dinner.
Lifespan
According to ringing, the woodpecker lives for about 7 years in conditions wildlife. They are shot by 2/3 hunters, it is not clear for what purpose. After all, these woodpeckers are of great benefit, destroying pests..
Red Book
The woodpecker is listed in the Red Book of Moscow. It is also protected on the territory of North Ossetia, Kursk and Lipetsk regions.
Do you know that...
There are not only whites, but also? All detailed information about the life of a long-legged bird.
Zelna(Dryocopus martius) It's amazing how many woodpeckers exist in nature! No, woodpeckers in the good, in the truest sense of the word, and not those that you thought of. They are distributed throughout the globe, except for Australia, New Zealand and Madagascar. The order of woodpeckers includes toucans, honeyguides, and jacamars - chatterboxes and puffs, and woodpeckers proper. There are about 200 species in the woodpecker family, of which we have black woodpeckers (one species), green woodpeckers (two species), three-toed woodpeckers(one species) and spotted woodpeckers (eight species - great spotted woodpecker, Syrian woodpecker, middle spotted woodpecker, white-backed woodpecker, rufous-bellied woodpecker, lesser spotted woodpecker, great and lesser sharp-winged woodpecker). Of the spotted woodpeckers, you can most often meet the large spotted woodpecker, less often - the small spotted and white-backed woodpecker. The rest are extremely rare, like the gray-haired and green woodpeckers. If one day you see like this, naked, stripped tree: 
then be sure - the black woodpecker worked, zhelna. And these are the moves of the larvae that the bile feeds on: 
These two-room apartments are built by a woodpecker for forest dwellers: 
In winter, when it becomes completely hungry, the yellow ravages anthills: 
Zhelna is one of the largest representatives of the woodpecker order, in size (up to 45 cm!) It is second only to toucans, which belong to the same order. The beak is a real chisel, the neck is disproportionately thin: 
She is jet-black in color, so it is difficult to shoot her with a “soap box”: autofocus does not focus on her massive body! Only bulging eyes, a yellowish beak, and a bright red cap in males stand out: 
Because of this cap, the bird looks like a Catholic cardinal. Nevertheless, in the Middle Ages, the zhelna was considered a bird of Satan and was mercilessly exterminated. But she is a very sweet and pretty bird, isn't she? 
However, there is also something diabolical in it, especially when the yellow-bell frantically flails with its beak: 
It feeds on carpenter beetles, lumberjacks, bark beetles and gold beetles, their larvae, caterpillars and pupae of other insects, thus bringing great benefits to the health of the forest. There is even greater benefit from hollows, in which the yellow-bellied not only nests, but also usually spends the night. She makes them easily, which is understandable with such and such a size of the beak with which she works, either with a chisel, or with tweezers, or with pliers: 
However, the zhelna spends two to three weeks on the device of the hollow. Squirrels, pigeons, owls and even smaller birds settle in the hollows left by the zhelny, which close up a significant part of the huge rectangular inlet made by the zhelny, fastening it with wood dust and their own saliva. With the exception of the mating season, the zhelna lives as a hermit: in order to soak, she needs a space of several square kilometers. 
Still, it's not that hard to find one. Her sad, even mournful cry in the deserted autumn forest is heard from afar. I once wrote in a poem The dreary cry of autumn: Silence has settled in the forests, The damp leaf is soft underfoot, Only a long-drawn-out cry is yellow, Yes, the fogs fall a little audibly. In the spring, males thirsty for love arrange drum trills, well and distinctly audible from afar. They say that in 2.5 seconds the jelna delivers approximately 40 blows to the resonating barrel. Is very similar! We have already considered the yellow beak, now look how steadily it is attached to the tree: what tenacious paws, and what a powerful tail: 
And so - an ordinary bird of our forests, a tree doctor, a forest orderly and a builder of forest houses - a black woodpecker or yellow. 
February 4, 2008 Moscow