Grey-Headed Woodpecker (Picus canus) lives in deciduous forest with many dead trees across Europe. It feeds on insects and sap. Its conservation status is Least Concern.
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Fascinating facts about the Grey-Headed Woodpecker
At just 25-26 cm long and weighing about 125 g, the grey-headed woodpecker is roughly the size of a Eurasian collared dove, yet it can hammer a tree with a 20 Hz drumming rhythm that lasts up to two seconds or 40 beats. This rapid, resonant drumming that the birds reuse for years, even on metal roofs.
Ants and their larvae dominate the diet, making up about 90 % of what grey-headed woodpeckers eat, but they switch to berries and other fruit in late autumn and early winter. This flexible feeding lets them coexist with the more ant-specialised European green woodpecker and occupy overlapping territories up to 100 m apart.
Across its European range, the grey-headed woodpecker is estimated to hold 180,000 to 320,000 breeding pairs, with Germany supporting around 15,000 pairs, Austria about 2,500, and Switzerland roughly 1,500. These numbers highlight the species' reliance on large, undisturbed forest blocks; loss of ancient, dead-tree-rich habitats poses the greatest threat to its future stability.
First described by Johann Friedrich Gmelin in 1788, the grey-headed woodpecker bears the Latin epithet canus, meaning "grey," a nod to its muted head colour. Eleven subspecies split into a northern group with a grey nape and a southeastern group with a black nape, some of which, like the Sumatran form, are even debated as separate species.
Grey-headed woodpeckers lay five to ten eggs each May, with chicks hatching after 15-17 days and leaving the nest in 24-25 days.
Sources
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In the dappled light of the forest, the Grey-Headed Woodpecker dances with effortless ease, its sleek, black-and-green plumage blending seamlessly with the shadows as it flits from tree to tree. With each movement, its grey hood seems to glow, like a soft, lunar halo, as it probes the gnarled bark for hidden insects, its strong, chisel-tipped beak drumming out a rhythmic beat. As it forages, its bright, inquisitive eyes sparkle with a keen intelligence, illuminating the secret world of the woodland, where this charismatic bird reigns supreme.
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