Facts about the woodpecker
- Members of the family Picidae (woodpeckers, piculets and wrynecks) have strong bills for drilling and drumming on trees and long sticky tongues for extracting food.
- Woodpeckers, toucans, barbets, jacamars and honeyguides all have two toes on each foot pointing forwards and two pointing backwards. Their toes help them cling to trees and branches.
- The stiffened tails of woodpeckers are crucial for their climbing and foraging techniques. The tail is used as a prop. Here a Black-rumped Flameback rests while foraging using its tail for support.
- Woodpeckers use their powerful bills to bore into tree trunks to get at insects. They spear the insects with their incredibly long tongues.
- The smallest woodpecker is the Bar-breasted Piculet, at 7 g and 8 cm (3 1/4 inches).
- Gila woodpeckers escape the desert heat by nesting inside giant saguaro cacti (where it can be 30°C cooler).
- The largest woodpecker was the Imperial Woodpecker, at an average of 58 cm (23 inches) and probably over 600 g (1.3 lb).
- Redhead woodpeckers drill holes in trees and use them to store acorns for winter — wedging them in very tightly so that squirrels cannot steal them.
- Picidae species can either be sedentary or migratory. Many species are known to stay in the same area year-round while others travel great distances from their breeding grounds to their wintering grounds.
- Woodpeckers claim their territory not by singing, but by hammering their bills against trees.
- Woodpeckers are diurnal, roosting at night inside holes. In most species the roost will become the nest during the breeding season.
- Honeyguides lead honey badgers to bees’ nests. The badger opens them to get the honey and the bird gets beeswax.
