All you need to know about the great spotted woodpecker <\/p>
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As a garden bird enthusiast, there are few sights more captivating than a great spotted woodpecker flashing into view. Sleek and dapper, they dart into gardens, alight at breakneck speed and feed in improbably acrobatic positions.<\/p>\n
Youngsters are ushered by their parents into gardens; a behaviour that is designed to help these fledglings towards independence, showing them where to find a reliable meal.\u00a0It is a strategy that seems to work.<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> Great spotted woodpeckers take a wide variety of foods in gardens, happily hammering peanuts, chiselling suet-blocks or clearing trays of mealworms.<\/p>\n As long as they can get a good grip on a feeder and can reach the food inside, they will sample most things.<\/p>\n A great spotted woodpecker\u2019s tongue can protrude some 40mm beyond the tip of its bill \u2013 so not many garden bird foods are out of their reach.<\/p>\n Identifying a great spotted woodpecker is relatively easy.<\/p>\n There are just two black and white woodpeckers in Britain: the great spotted woodpecker and the lesser spotted woodpecker.<\/p>\n The former are about the size of starlings<\/a><\/strong> and are fairly widespread, while the latter are only about the size of greenfinches<\/a> <\/strong>and are worryingly \u2013 and increasingly \u2013 scarce.<\/p>\n When perched, the great spotted woodpecker has two large white shoulder patches whereas the lesser spotted woodpecker has several white bars.<\/p>\n Lesser spotted woodpeckers also lack pale red under-tail coverts, which are akin to red underpants, which great spotted woodpeckers have.<\/p>\n Juvenile great spotted woodpeckers can be distinguished from adults of the same species by the presence of a red skull cap and pale red under-tail coverts.<\/p>\n Adult great spotted woodpeckers, by contrast, have a black skull cap and bright red under-tail coverts.<\/p>\n Adult males can be distinguished from adult females through the presence of a small rectangle of red feathers on the back of the head.<\/p>\n\n
How big are great spotted woodpeckers?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
What do great spotted woodpeckers eat?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
How to spot a great spotted woodpecker<\/strong><\/h2>\n