Wonderful Woodpecker

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We hope you enjoyed time with an elegant elephant that is too on a right day, since we picked up animal last week now its time to look at to the wonderful bird today. We always think that only animals are useful in some or the other way but we never realize the contribution of birds in maintaining the balance ecosystem. Similar to other animals woodpeckers are equally important, let me elaborate the same in next sections.

Catch me if you can:

Initially, when I started forest visit I was not much aware of woodpecker, the only thing I had heard is that it has a sharp beak to tap on the tree but never had seen it. First time I saw Woodpecker at Nagzira forest co-incidentally it was my first forest visit as well. It was wow feeling to watch this little bird in its home zone; it is a little bird with a super color combination. Due to its small size, it is not that easy to capture woodpecker because it is like an impatient kid who keeps flying from one tree to other and due to its little size it is always difficult to locate and capture in such a dense area. We are very lucky that we could manage to capture it in most of the visits. I remember sighting at Corbett for around 15 minutes, in normal case you hardly get sighting for a couple of minutes but here we got it for a longer time than we expected which itself is rare and unique hence after such effort if you get jackpot you feel like blessings from nature. It's not only about sighting we should also know about the importance of nature's creatures which I learned over the various visits and hence will update you on various unknown details of this little bird which will help you to identify and locate this lovely bird in your nature trips

The Little wonder

Woodpeckers are part of the family Picidae, a group of near-passerine birds that also consist of piculets, wrynecks, and sapsuckers. There are over 180 species of woodpeckers, all in the family Picidae

Woodpeckers live in wooded areas and forests, where they tap on tree trunks in order to find insects living in crevices in the bark and to excavate nest cavities

The woodpecker pecks to attract a mate, to warn off predators and rivals and as a way to mark his turf. This particular type of pecking is known as “drumming,” and woodpeckers often seek out hardwood or other hard surfaces for this activity to ensure the sound is loud and far-reaching

They mostly nest and roost in holes that they excavate in tree trunks, and their abandoned holes are of importance to other cavity-nesting birds

Several woodpeckers are under threat as their habitats are destroyed. Being woodland birds, deforestation, and clearance of land for agriculture and other purposes can reduce populations dramatically

Something unique

An important part of the ecosystem, woodpeckers help control insect populations and create nest cavities that are used by other birds and mammals who cannot excavate the cavities themselves

Male and female woodpeckers work together to excavate a cavity in a tree that is used as a nest and to incubate eggs for about two weeks. When a woodpecker hatches, it is blind and does not have any feathers. One parent brings food to the nest while the other parent stays with the young. The young generally leave the nest after 25 - 30 days

They sometimes come into conflict with humans when they make holes in buildings or feed on fruit crops, but perform a useful service by their removal of insect pests on trees