Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
They also eat ants, which may be tending sap-sucking pests such as mealybugs, as is the case with the rufous woodpecker in coffee plantations in India. [60] Woodpeckers can serve as indicator species, demonstrating the quality of the habitat. Their hole-making abilities make their presence in an area an important part of the ecosystem, because ...
The acorn woodpecker is one of 24 species now placed in the genus Melanerpes that was introduced by Swainson in 1832. [6] [7] Within Melanerpes the acorn woodpecker is sister to a clade containing two South American species: the white woodpecker (Melanerpes candidus) and the white-fronted woodpecker (Melanerpes cactorum). [8] Seven subspecies ...
The pileated woodpecker (/ ˈ p aɪ l i eɪ t ə d, ˈ p ɪ l-/ PY-lee-ay-tid, PIL-ee-; Dryocopus pileatus) 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.
As a woodpecker, its diet is composed greatly of insects, which it gains from drilling into bark. [7] Gila woodpeckers are omnivorous, and do take fruits, nectar, seeds, as well as lizards, eggs, worms, and even young chicks of small birds. [6] They are even known to hang on human placed hummingbird feeders and sip up the nectar. [4]
The hammering of woodpeckers when drumming or feeding creates great forces which are potentially damaging to the birds. [23] In the great spotted woodpecker and most of its relatives, the hinge where the front of the skull connects with the upper mandible is folded inwards, tensioned by a muscle that braces it against the shock of the impact ...
Over 100 common names for the northern flicker are known, including yellowhammer (not to be confused with the Eurasian yellowhammer (Emberiza citrinella)), clape, gaffer woodpecker, harry-wicket, [2] 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 ...
The ladder-backed woodpecker is fairly common in dry brushy areas and thickets and has a rather large range. The species can be found year-round over the southwestern United States (north to extreme southern Nevada and extreme southeastern Colorado), most of Mexico, and locally in Central America as far south as Nicaragua.
The downy woodpecker (Dryobates pubescens) is a species of woodpecker, the smallest in North America.Length ranges from 14 to 18 cm (5.5 to 7.1 in). 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.