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Picus canus

2023-06-10 23:41:17 63

Picus canus summary

The Grey-headed green Woodpecker has 11 subspecies: Picus canus, Grey-faced Woodpecker and Grey-headed woodpecker.

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Grey-headed green woodpeckers are solitary or in pairs, rarely in groups. Flying fast, in a wave. They often feed in the middle and lower part of the trunk, and often feed on the ground, especially on the ground and the ant cutting. Usually rarely tweet, the cry is simple, only issued a single syllable, "ga-ga-" sound. However, during reproduction, the song is very frequent and loud, and the tone is longer and changeable, and its sound is like "gao-gao-gao-".

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The grey-headed green woodpecker mainly feeds on ants, silverfish, longicorn larvae, lepidoptera, coleoptera, hymenoptera and other insects. Foraging often spirals up from the base of the trunk, and when it reaches the top of the tree, it flies to the base of another tree and then searches up again, which can hook out insects from under the bark or into the woody parts of the trunk with long tongues. They occasionally eat plant fruits and seeds, such as mountain grapes, red pine nuts, yellow lily cones, and grass seeds.

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The breeding season for grey-headed green woodpeckers is from April to June. At the beginning of April, pairs of activities were seen, and the sound increased, chasing each other, and issuing a "quack" sound. Nest in the tree hole, the nest hole is completed by the male and female birds together, new peck nest hole every year, generally do not use the old nest. Most of the nest holes were selected in mixed forest, broad-leaved forest, secondary forest or forest margin broad-leaved trees such as manchus, aspen, plum, oak, elm and other wood decay. The nest hole is 2.7-11 meters high from the ground, the opening is round or oval, the diameter is 5-6 cm, the inner diameter of the hole is 13-15 cm, and the depth of the hole is 27-42 cm. The nest has no internal bedding. Breeding 1 litter a year, in early May began to lay eggs. 8-11 eggs are laid per litter, with 9-10 eggs being the majority. Eggs are milky white, smooth without spots, oval, the size of 28.5-30.7 mm ×21-22.9 mm, average 29.5 mm ×21.6 mm, weight 6.5 grams. After the eggs are laid, the eggs are incubated, and the male and female birds take turns to bear the incubation period of 12-13 days. Young birds are late sex, and male and female birds raise young together. The early warming time is more, the number of feeding chicks is less, and more into the human nest to feed the chicks. In the later period, the chicks are not warm, the number of feeding chicks increases, and they all stand in the hole and extend their heads into the hole to feed the chicks. After 23-24 days of feeding, the chicks can fly and leave the nest.


Listed on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) 2012 Red List of Threatened Species ver3.1 - Not Threatened (LC).




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Picus canus Life habits and morphological characteristics

The male of the grey-headed green woodpecker has black on the forehead base, vermilion on the forehead and top of the head, gray or dark gray on the back of the head, pillow and back neck, mixed with black feathers, black first, gray on the brow, gray on the ear feathers, gray on the side of the neck, and wide and obvious on the zygomatic. Back and wings covered with olive green, waist and tail covered with green yellow. The central tail feathers are olive brown, with two gray-white semicircular spots, the end is black, the shaft is bright black, and the outer tail feathers are dark brown with dark transverse spots. The primary fly feathers are black, the outer vexes have white square spots, the inner vexes also have white spots, the secondary fly feathers are olive yellow, the white spots are not obvious. The chin, throat and foreneck of the lower body are grayish white, the thorax, abdomen and flanks are grayish green, the undertail covers are grayish green, and the tips are grassy g

Picus canus Distribution range and habitat

The grey-headed green woodpecker is found in Albania, Austria, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium, Bhutan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Cambodia, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, South Korea, and Democratic Korea Socialist People's Republic, People's Republic of China, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Republic of Macedonia, Malaysia, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Myanmar, Nepal, Netherlands, Norway, Pakistan, Poland, Romania, Russian Federation, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, Vietnam.
The grey-headed green woodpecker mainly inhabits the low mountain broad-leaved forest and mixed forest, and also appears in the secondary forest and forest margin, and rarely goes to the original coniferous forest. Autumn and winter often appear on the roadside, farmland side of the open forest, but also o