Specie's Page                                               Garden and Hedgerow - Great-spotted Woodpecker

Great-spotted Woodpecker:

UK Status: Resident and native.

Habitat: This is a bird primarily of woodland, they need mature trees to nest in, and to forage for food. Often heard, but not often seen hammering away on the sides of trees. Woodpeckers will come to bird feeders sometimes in secluded clearings and glades.

Breeding: Nests are holes in dead, or living trees, they use existing holes, or chisel new ones out with their tough chisel like beaks. Nest are only lined with wood chips, and four to six off white eggs are laid in a single annual clutch. Eggs are laid in the UK from late April to mid June, incubation takes ten to twelve days, and both parents take part in the incubation process. Although monogamous during the breeding season Greater-spotted Woodpeckers often have different partners each year.

Comment: This bird although fairly common is fairly secretive, and that combined with it's habitat makes it difficult to spot. It is larger in size than the Lesser-spotted Woodpecker, and that is often the key point for identification. Markings are the two birds are similar, but not the same. Great-spotted are 7" to 9.5" in length, where as the Lesser spotted is 14" to 16.5" inches in length.