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In Europe, on the areas occupied by deciduous and also mixed forests, a rather large and unusually beautiful bird with a green robe lives - it is called a green woodpecker. The back and wings are painted olive green, the abdomen and the front of the neck have a light green plumage, and sometimes it can be greenish-gray, decorated with dark marks.
On both sides of the woodpecker's beak, two strips diverge in shape like a cavalry mustache. In females, they are colored black, in males they are red with a black border. On the back of the head of an adult bird, there is a red spot in shape resembling a cardinal hat. A black spot is located around the woodpecker's eyes, surrounded by rounded green cheeks and a red "cardinal hat", black spots look like a carnival mask. All green woodpeckers have a yellow-green plumage of the epiphora and a beak painted in lead gray.
Females with males have the only difference expressed by the color of the mustache. Immature individuals do not have a mustache, their eyes have a dark gray tint, and the eyes of adults - birds - bluish-white.
There are four fingers on the woodpecker's paws with sharp and tenacious claws. With the help of its claws, this bird is able to stay on the vertical surfaces of tree trunks, leaning on a hard tail.
Singing features
The green woodpecker is able to make quite loud monotonous two-syllable sounds, and the second syllable, which sounds much louder, is clearly stressed. The males and females emit the same voice signals, they can be heard throughout the year. The sound looks monotonous without sharp contrasts in tonality. The singing of a green woodpecker is not accompanied by clicking and chirping, and if you have to hollow trees, as other woodpeckers do, he takes it with great reluctance.
Diet
Although the main diet consists of forest and red ants, they can also eat snails, earthworms, larvae of lumberjacks, as well as caterpillars of moths. In addition, woodpeckers willingly catch wild bees, sitting near the hive. Less often, they feed on plant foods, which make up only an additional part of their diet, these may be the fallen fruits of a forest apple, persimmon, sweet cherry, mulberry, pear, cherry and grape. Sometimes they eat berries or seeds.
In the autumn-winter period, especially after the first snow falls, ants become very difficult prey, because for the winter they hide under the ground. But green woodpeckers manage to find them even in winter, digging whole tunnels in the snow. In addition to ants, they know where many other insects are hiding, although in winter they more readily eat winter berries of mountain ash and yew.
Courtship games
Green woodpeckers can become sexually mature by the end of the 1st year of life, and are ready to transgress to mating. Males spend the winter period separately with females until the third decade of February. During this period, they begin to experience attraction to representatives of the opposite sex. Courtship and flirting may continue until April.
With the onset of spring, when the sun begins to warm the earth, the excitement of woodpeckers reaches a high point. With loud cries, they jump through the trees, actively creating advertisements for the place chosen for the nest. The calls of males are expressed by frequent and very loud screams, but the sounds of the drum roll, which are often emitted by other woodpeckers, are rarely used by green woodpeckers.
At the very beginning of the mating season, woodpeckers arrange their noisy games in the morning, and when the season comes to an end - their cries can be heard only in the evening. When the female flew to the male’s call and gave him an answer, the theater of action is just beginning. They continue to call each other, gradually approaching, until they sit on one branch and touch each other with their beaks. After this, the male must perform another ritual, present his girlfriend a wedding treat. Only after all the conventions are observed, the birds mate.
Green woodpeckers pair only for 1 season, however, in connection with their binding to one place, last year’s partners are not uncommon. This feature distinguishes them from gray-headed woodpeckers, who often migrate and rarely remain two years in one place. Green individuals lead an exclusively sedentary lifestyle, without flying away from a place of constant overnight stay beyond 5 kilometers.
Offspring
To arrange their nest, birds of this species knock out a convenient hollow, which can subsequently be used for many years. If in the future it is necessary to resettle, it’s not far, as a rule, they equip a new dwelling within a kilometer from the old one. Both partners take part in the hollowing of the hollow, but nevertheless, the male does the lion's share of the work.
The hollow receives its location in a tree trunk or in a thick side branch; the birds position it at least 2 meters from the ground in height, but also not higher than 10 meters. For their hollow, woodpeckers look for a tree with an empty core or completely dry, but still preference is given to soft wood species.
The cross section of the nest built by the green woodpecker is about 18 centimeters, and its depth is able to reach half a meter. The hole for entering the hollow they make within 7 centimeters. As a laying for laying, these birds use a layer of fine wood. The construction of the next nest can take up to 4 weeks.
The female can lay her clutch in the period from the last ten days of March to the first days of June; from 5 to 8 eggs of oblong shape with a glossy shell can be in the clutch. She sits on the masonry only after she lays the last egg, the incubation period can last from 14 to 17 days. Both parents are engaged in hatching offspring, replacing each other with an interval of 2 hours, and at night the male sits down on the clutch.
Woodpeckers chicks hatch simultaneously, all on the same day, both parents are engaged in feeding offspring, they fly with full goiter and share their prey equally for all, burping part of each chick. While the chicks are in the nest, parents are forced to comply with all the rules of secrecy, so as not to attract too much attention to the defenseless offspring.
On the 23rd day of life, the chicks make their first attempts to leave the nest, they still do not know how to fly, but are already actively moving along the branches and trunk of a tree. Gradually, the first flight attempts are made, which each time become more successful, but everyone continues to live in the nest. Only when the youth confidently takes wing, half of the brood will follow the male, and the other will follow the female, the parents will take care of their babies for 7 weeks until they become independent birds.
Curious facts
The green woodpecker is a big glutton and a gourmet, in search of the prey of interest to him, he is able to fly away for several kilometers. The singing of a green woodpecker cannot be confused with anyone; its plumage is so colored that it is much easier to hear a bird than to see it. But the one who has heard the woodpecker no longer confuses him with anyone.
The famous sound, reminiscent of the frequent drum roll that all woodpeckers emit, among other things, serves as their way of communication. To make the sound loud, the woodpecker hollows on dry branches.
Video: Green Woodpecker (Picus viridis)
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