Black woodpecker | |
---|---|
Adult female | |
Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Aves |
Order: | Piciformes |
Family: | Picidae |
Genus: | Dryocopus |
Species: | D. martius |
Binomial name | |
Dryocopus martius | |
Black woodpecker range | |
Synonyms | |
Picus martiusLinnaeus, 1758 |
The black woodpecker (Dryocopus martius) is a large woodpecker that lives in mature forests across the northern Palearctic. It is the sole representative of its genus in that region. Its range is expanding. The black woodpecker is easily the largest woodpecker species in Europe as well as in the portion of Asia where it lives and is one of the largest species worldwide. This non-migratory species tends to make its home in old-growth forest or large forest stands and excavates a large tree hole to reside in. In turn, several species rely on black woodpeckers to secondarily reside in the holes made in trees by them. This woodpeckers diet consists mostly of carpenter ants. This species is closely related to, and fills the same ecological niche in Europe as, the pileated woodpecker of North America and the lineated woodpecker of South America, also being similar to the white-bellied woodpecker which is distributed to the south somewhat of the black woodpecker in Asia.
The black woodpecker was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Picus martius. [2] Linnaeus gave the locality as Europe, but this is now taken to be Sweden. [3] The black woodpecker is now placed in the genus Dryocopus that was introduced by the German naturalist Friedrich Boie in 1826. [4] [5]
Two subspecies are recognised: [5]
The black woodpecker measures 45 to 55 cm (18 to 22 in) long with a 64 to 84 cm (25 to 33 in) wingspan. [6] [7] Body weight is approximately 250 to 400 g (8.8 to 14.1 oz) on average. [7] [8] [9] Among standard measurements, the wing chord is 22.7 to 26 cm (8.9 to 10.2 in), the tail is 15.9 to 17.3 cm (6.3 to 6.8 in), the very long bill is 5 to 6.7 cm (2.0 to 2.6 in) and the tarsus is 3.6 to 4 cm (1.4 to 1.6 in). [7] It is easily the largest woodpecker in its range and is second in size only to the great slaty woodpecker amongst the woodpecker species certain to exist (with the likely extinction of the largest and second largest woodpeckers), although its average mass is similar to that of the Magellanic woodpecker of South America. The closely related pileated and white-bellied woodpeckers also broadly overlap in size with the black woodpecker, but both are somewhat smaller in average and maximal size and mass. [7] The plumage of this crow-sized woodpecker is entirely black apart from a red crown. In males, the entire crown is red, but in females only the top hindcrown is red, with the rest of the body all black. [6] The juvenile black woodpecker is similar but is less glossy, with a duller red crown and a paler grey throat and bill . [10] The piercing yellow eyes and manic, high-pitched calls of the black woodpecker have made it the villain of fairy tales throughout its range. Their voice is remarkable in that it has two different calls. One is a short single high-pitched note, a loud, whistling kree-kree-kree, done only twice in a row. The other is a screech-like shrill while in flight. Unlike other woodpecker species, the black woodpecker does not have a dipping, bounding flight, but instead flies with slow, unsteady-seeming wing beats with its head raised. [7] [10]
The range of the black woodpecker spreads east from Spain across the whole of Europe, excluding Great Britain, Ireland, and northern Scandinavia. It is also native to parts of Asia, including Korea, Japan and China, and to the Middle East, including Iran and Kazakhstan. The southern limits of this woodpecker's range are in Spain and Italy, and it has also been recorded as a vagrant in Portugal. The species is generally more uncommon and more discontinuous in distribution in the Asian part of its range. [11]
The black woodpecker is mainly found in forested regions, with a preference for extensive, mature woodland, including coniferous, tropical, subtropical and boreal forests. It is very widespread throughout mountainous and lowland forests. It is more likely to occur in marginal woods near human habitations during the non-breeding season. This species has been observed at elevations between 100 and 2,400 m (330 and 7,870 ft). [11] [7] [10]
The black woodpecker is noticeably absent from the British Isles. Approximately 80 sightings of the species in the UK have been reported, but some of these are disputed, though the proximity of the British Isles to the species' range in Western Europe means that the species may cross over on a regular basis. [12]
The woodpecker feeds by using its bill to hammer on dead trees to dig out carpenter ants and wood-boring beetle grubs. [8] The selection of foods is relatively predictable, narrow and consistent in this species. [13] Like all woodpeckers, this species has a specially adapted neck containing very strong muscles, which allow it to endlessly hack away at tree bark. Due to the size of its bill and large size and great physical power of this bird, it can access prey fairly deep within a tree. In order to position itself correctly, it has short, stumpy legs, as well as long, sharp claws and very stiff tail feathers. The woodpecker will more than likely choose for its nest a tree with a fungal disease, such as heart rot, although some will utilise a living, healthy tree. Once a hole has been made, the black woodpecker chips downwards through the trunk of the tree, creating a nesting chamber, the only lining being the woodchips created throughout the process. The black woodpecker's excavations provide homes for many other species of bird and mammal, and is therefore considered to be a "keystone" species in many of its habitats throughout its range. It not only provides habitats for other species, but also controls populations of wood-boring insects, helping to protect the trees. [10] [14]
When the nest is ready, the female lays a single clutch of two to eight eggs, the average being four to six. The nest hole is usually dug in a live poplar or pine tree. [8] The breeding pair take it in turns to incubate the eggs, also sharing duties of feeding and brooding the chicks once they have hatched. The nestlings may fight their way to the entrance of the nest in order to be fed first. After 18 to 35 days, the young black woodpeckers will leave the nest, staying with the adults for another week. [7] [10]
The black woodpecker is a fairly widely distributed woodland species and can successfully breed in most areas where extensive woodland is left. At one point, when much of Europe and Asia was deforested, this species declined and in some areas is still struggling today, including in the Pyrenees. They normally require mature trees and ample stands of dead trees to sustain a viable breeding population. [15] However, with the restoration of some forested areas, black woodpeckers have increased in some parts of Europe. [13] They are occasionally considered a nuisance species due to their damage to power lines, communication poles and houses, occasionally resulting in woodpecker mortality due to electrocution or being culled by humans. [16] The main cause of nesting failures appears to be predation. [17] Their main natural predator is the pine marten (Martes martes), which feeds on eggs, nestlings and brooding females and then often takes over the nest hole of the woodpeckers for its own. [18] Other than the marten, there are notably few known natural predators of black woodpeckers. [19] Western jackdaws (Corvus monedula) are notably regular usurpers of this species' nest holes and a potential predator of eggs and small nestlings. [20] A few of the larger birds of prey that can hunt in woodlands may prey on black woodpeckers. Among those recorded are Ural owls (Strix uralensis), [21] Eurasian eagle-owls (Bubo bubo), [22] northern goshawks (Accipiter gentilis), [23] common buzzards (Buteo buteo) [24] and golden eagles (Aquila chrysaetos).
The municipality of Nurmijärvi in Uusimaa, Finland has adopted the black woodpecker as the title bird of the municipality, because in addition to being the most common bird in the locality, it also appears in the literature of Aleksis Kivi, a Finnish national author, originally from Nurmijärvi. [25] [ failed verification ] Nurmijärvi's local football club NJS has also adopted the black woodpecker as the club's logo. [26]
Dryocopus martius martius is thought to be the woodpecker referred to in the augural instructions on the early Italic Iguvine Tablets by the Umbrian word peiqu, a bird "very prominent in early Italic religion and mythology." [27]
The common swift is a medium-sized bird, superficially similar to the barn swallow or house martin but somewhat larger, though not stemming from those passerine species, being in the order Apodiformes. The resemblances between the groups are due to convergent evolution, reflecting similar contextual development. The swifts' nearest relatives are the New World hummingbirds and the Southeast Asian treeswifts.
The great spotted woodpecker 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 the Palearctic including 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 recolonisation of Ireland in the first decade of the 21st century 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; like other woodpeckers, they have anatomical adaptations to manage the physical stresses from the hammering action. This species is similar to the Syrian woodpecker.
The European green woodpecker is a large green woodpecker with a bright red crown and a black moustache. Males have a red centre to the moustache stripe which is absent in females. It is resident across much of Europe and the western Palearctic but in Spain and Portugal it is replaced by the similar Iberian green woodpecker.
The Eurasian nuthatch or wood nuthatch is a small passerine bird found throughout the Palearctic and in Europe. Like other nuthatches, it is a short-tailed bird with a long bill, blue-gray upperparts and a black eye-stripe. It is a vocal bird with a repeated loud dwip call. There are more than 20 subspecies in three main groups; birds in the west of the range have orange-buff underparts and a white throat, those in Russia have whitish underparts, and those in the east have a similar appearance to European birds, but lack the white throat.
Woodpeckers are part of the bird family Picidae, which also includes the piculets, wrynecks and sapsuckers. Members of this family are found worldwide, except for Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand, Madagascar and the extreme polar regions. Most species live in forests or woodland habitats, although a few species are known that live in treeless areas, such as rocky hillsides and deserts, and the Gila woodpecker specialises in exploiting cacti.
The bufflehead is a small sea duck of the genus Bucephala, the goldeneyes. This species was first described by Carl Linnaeus in his landmark 1758 10th edition of Systema Naturae as Anas albeola.
The rough-legged buzzard (Europe) or rough-legged hawk is a medium-large bird of prey. It is found in Arctic and Subarctic regions of North America, Europe, and Russia during the breeding season and migrates south for the winter. It was traditionally also known as the rough-legged falcon in such works as John James Audubon's The Birds of America.
The pileated woodpecker is a large, mostly black woodpecker native to North America. An insectivore, it inhabits deciduous forests in eastern North America, the Great Lakes, the boreal forests of Canada, and parts of the Pacific Coast. It is the largest confirmed extant woodpecker species in North America, with the possible exception of the ivory-billed woodpecker, which the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed be reclassified as extinct. It is also the third largest species of woodpecker in the world, after the great slaty woodpecker and the black woodpecker. "Pileated" refers to the bird's prominent red crest, from the Latin pileatus meaning "capped".
The northern flicker or common flicker is a medium-sized bird of the woodpecker family. It is native to most of North America, parts of Central America, Cuba, and the Cayman Islands, and is one of the few woodpecker species that migrate. Over 100 common names for the northern flicker are known, including yellowhammer, clape, gaffer woodpecker, harry-wicket, heigh-ho, wake-up, walk-up, wick-up, yarrup, and gawker bird. Many of these names derive from attempts to imitate some of its calls. It is the state bird of Alabama.
The red-headed woodpecker is a mid-sized woodpecker found in temperate North America. Its breeding habitat is open country across southern Canada and the east-central United States. It is rated as least concern on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)'s Red List of Endangered species, having been down-listed from near threatened in 2018.
The downy woodpecker is a species of woodpecker, the smallest in North America. Length ranges from 14 to 18 cm. Downy woodpeckers primarily live in forested areas throughout the United States and Canada, with the exception of deserts in the southwest and the northern tundra. The bird nests in tree cavities and feeds primarily on insects, although it supplements its diet with seeds and berries. The downy woodpecker is very similar in appearance to the hairy woodpecker, although they are not closely related.
The acorn woodpecker is a medium-sized woodpecker, 21 cm (8.3 in) long, with an average weight of 85 g (3.0 oz).
The red-bellied woodpecker is a medium-sized woodpecker of the family Picidae. It breeds mainly in the eastern United States, ranging as far south as Florida and as far north as Canada. Though it has a vivid orange-red crown and nape it is not to be confused with the red-headed woodpecker, a separate species of woodpecker in the same genus with an entirely red head and neck that sports a solid black back and white belly. The red-bellied earns its name from the pale reddish blush of its lower underside.
The eastern screech owl or eastern screech-owl, is a small owl that is relatively common in Eastern North America, from Mexico to Canada. This species resides in most types of woodland habitats across its range, and is relatively adaptable to urban and developed areas compared to other owls. Although it often lives in close proximity to humans, the eastern screech owl frequently avoids detection due to its strictly nocturnal habits.
The red-cockaded woodpecker is a woodpecker endemic to the southeastern United States.
The zone-tailed hawk is a medium-sized hawk of warm, dry parts of the Americas. It is somewhat similar in plumage and flight style to a common scavenger, the turkey vulture, and may benefit from being able to blend into groups of vultures. It feeds on small terrestrial tetrapods of all kinds.
The lineated woodpecker is a very large woodpecker which is a resident breeding bird from southern Mexico to northern Argentina and Trinidad in the Caribbean.
The white-bellied woodpecker or great black woodpecker is a woodpecker species inhabiting evergreen forests in tropical Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia. It is among the largest of the Asiatic woodpeckers and nests in large dead trees, often beside rivers. It has 14 subspecies, and many of its island forms are endangered, some are extinct. Populations differ in the distribution and extent of white. Its drums and calls are louder than those of the smaller woodpeckers.
Dryocopus is a genus of large powerful woodpeckers, typically 35–45 cm in length. It has representatives in North and South America, Europe, and Asia; some South American species are endangered. It was believed to be closely related to the American genus Campephilus, but it is part of a different lineage of woodpeckers altogether
The Magellanic woodpecker is a species of large woodpecker found in southern Chile and southwestern Argentina; it is resident within its range. This species is the southernmost example of the genus Campephilus, which includes the famous ivory-billed woodpecker.