The secret to telling a male green woodpecker from a female
It's all in the moustache, apparently
Most people recognise the sound of a woodpecker long before they see it: the tap-tap-tap noise echoing through the woods as it pecks through the bark of rotting trees.
The European green woodpecker does not often peck at trees, however, preferring to hunt for ants on the ground. It uses its long beak to probe into ants' nests and lick up both adult ants and their larvae.
Their tongues are long enough to reach right over to the back of their heads. In winter, they have been known to dig through deep snow to reach an ants' nest.
Green woodpeckers have green backs, yellow bellies, and a red crown. Males have a red moustache and females have a black one, making it easy to tell them apart. Their preferred habitat is somewhere with old deciduous trees (oaks, beeches, willows and fruit trees are favourites) for nesting, and plenty of nearby ants, ie small woodlands, grasslands, orchards and lawns. The male excavates a deep nesting space out of the tree, leaving a entrance which is 2-3 inches wide.
Once the chicks are hatched the parents feed them almost entirely on ants, and if you look carefully on the ground underneath a green woodpecker's nest you can find their distinctive long oval-shaped droppings, which contain almost exclusively the remains of ants.
The main threat to woodpeckers of all sorts is deforestation and the over-cultivation of gardens, meaning there are fewer and few old trees left standing. Therefore, gardeners hoping to attract woodpeckers should look carefully at old and dying trees before felling them as it is easy to spot signs of woodpecker activity, ie patches of newly pecked wood, and leave the tree in place so as to benefit from having a resident ant-eater.
