Alternative name: Grey-faced Woodpecker
Disambiguation: The African Eastern Grey Woodpecker is also sometimes known as Grey-headed Woodpecker.
- Picus canus
Identification
28–33 cm (11-13 in)
European birds: green wings, tail, and mantle, with the rest mostly grey. Narrow black moustacial stripe, narrow black lores (but not black behind eyes), and eyes are dark.
Male has a small red area from the peak of the crown towards the bill, the female has some black stripes in the same area.
Northern races are greyer overall with grey crown, southern and eastern races are greener with blacker crown and the isolated races P. c. robinsoni from Malaya and P. c. dedemi from Sumatra are small and dark.
Distribution
Main breeding range lies from Europe east to Sakhalin, Hokkaido, throughout much of China, the Himalayas and southeast China south to Vietnam.
In Europe breeds in southern Scandinavia and central and eastern Europe south to northern Greece and eastwards to the Urals. Also has a patchy distribution further west breeding in west and central France, Luxembourg and central and southern Germany, northern Switzerland, northern Italy and more widely in Austria.
Recently found to be breeding in northeastern and western Turkey. In the east of range there are isolated populations in north-east India, on Taiwan and Hainan, and the mountains of Malaysia and Sumatra.
Mainly resident but short-distance dispersal common and altitudinal movements recorded. Very rarely seen outside breeding range but has been recorded in the Spanish Pyrenees, the Netherlands and Turkey, and in March 1992 reported in Circeo National Park, Italy, well south of known Italian range.
Taxonomy
Subspecies
11 subspecies are recognised,[1] in three subspecies groups which probably merit species status:[2]
- Picus canus group (Grey-headed Woodpecker; northern Eurasia)
- Picus guerini group (Black-naped Woodpecker; eastern Asia)
- P. c. kogo - central China
- P. c. guerini - eastern China
- P. c. sobrinus - south-eastern China and north-eastern Vietnam
- P. c. tancolo - Hainan and Taiwan
- P. c. sordidior - south-eastern Tibet and south-western China to north-eastern Burma
- P. c. sanguiniceps - western Himalayas
- P. c. hessei - eastern Himalayas to Burma and Indochina
- P. c. robinsoni - western Malaysia
- Picus dedemi (Sumatran Woodpecker; endemic, Sumatra)
- P. c. dedemi - Sumatra
Habitat
Diverse woodlands including coniferous taiga forest, temperate deciduous woodland and subtropical forest, bamboo groves. Where both occur usually found in more upland areas than Green Woodpecker. In Scandinavia found in coniferous forest mixed with aspen but in central Europe found in deciduous and riparian forest, small woods in farmland, parks and large gardens.
Behaviour
Diet
Feeds on the ground, usually solitary. Their diet consists mostly of ants.
Vocalisation
Drums more frequently than Green Woodpecker.
References
- Clements, J. F., T. S. Schulenberg, M. J. Iliff, D. Roberson, T. A. Fredericks, B. L. Sullivan, and C. L. Wood. 2015. The eBird/Clements checklist of birds of the world: v2015, with updates to August 2015. Downloaded from http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/download/
- Grey-faced Woodpecker (Picus canus) is being split. BirdLife International.
- Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive (retrieved November 2015)
Recommended Citation
- BirdForum Opus contributors. (2024) Grey-headed Woodpecker. In: BirdForum, the forum for wild birds and birding. Retrieved 5 May 2024 from https://www.birdforum.net/opus/Grey-headed_Woodpecker
External Links
