DSC7216 Great spotted Woodpecker - a photo on Flickriver

            Great Spotted Woodpecker - Dendrocopus Major

The great spotted woodpecker occurs in all types of woodlands and is catholic in its diet, being capable of extracting seeds from pine cones, insect larvae from inside trees or eggs and chicks of other birds from their nests. It breeds in holes excavated in living or dead trees, unlined apart from wood chips. The typical clutch is four to six glossy white eggs. Both parents incubate the eggs, feed the chicks and keep the nest clean. When the young fledge they are fed by the adults for about ten days, each parent taking responsibility for feeding part of the brood. 

The great spotted woodpecker occurs in Eurasia from the British Isles to Japan, and in North Africa from Morocco to Tunisia, and it is absent only from those areas too cold or dry to have suitable woodland habitat. It is found in a wide variety of woodlands, broadleaf, coniferous or mixed, and in modified habitats like parks, gardens and olive groves. It occurs from sea-level to the tree line, up to 2,000 m (6,600 ft) in Europe, 2,200 m (7,200 ft) in Morocco and 2,500 m (8,200 ft) in Central Asia.

The great spotted woodpecker became extinct in the island of Ireland in the seventeenth century, due to deforestation, but the island was naturally recolonised by this species, with the first proven nesting in County Down in 2007. Its expansion in range is continuing, with breeding proven or suspected in at least 10 counties by 2013, with the main concentration in Down and County Wicklow. Genetic evidence shows the birds to be of British, rather than Scandinavian, ancestry, with the populations in Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic having separate origins. The great spotted woodpecker was also found to have been nesting in the Isle of Man from 2009.

Population:

UK breeding:
    140,000 pairs

Taken on: March 9, 2017

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