Eyelids like seat belts
Woodpeckers and headaches. Wouldn’t you get a headache if you banged your head against a tree 12,000 times a day? Luckily for Woodpeckers the only ones who survived to breed have numerous adaptations to head banging. Despite their love of heavy rock and a guilty pleasure of liking later Status Quo, Woodpeckers survive their head banging without ill effects. They have incredible neck muscles, a compressible bone in their skull and eyelids which act as seat belts for their eyeballs. Despite a heavy session of head banging they won’t end up ‘eyeballs-out’.
Here’s a female Great Spotted Woodpecker in its natural habitat; on a tree.
And of course, in common with other hand bangers, they have very small brains.
More Great Spotted Woodpeckers
The changing of the guard The Woodpecker pair I've been enjoying watching have a routine. I need to watch them for many more hours before I can be confident in explaining it, but one calls from a tree, the other looks out of the nest, leaves, and then the calling bird takes its place. Here's… read more
Woodpeckers at dawn I'm not that keen on getting up early unless I have a purpose. I need to be driven by a need other than simply getting up early. I don't need any encouragement to stay up late. This is one of those early days. I got up hours before my alarm… read more
Bluebells and Woodpeckers For some reason I never did post this photograph in May last year. That's odd, because it's one of my favourites. A Great Spotted Woodpecker in a private woodland in Somerset, surrounded by Bluebells. It's a wonderful place. read more
Knocking on the door Great Spotted Woodpeckers are knocking on the door at this time of year. You can hear them drumming in the last remnants of woodland we have, where the large and old trees haven't been felled as a condition of the insurance needed for public access. I wouldn't wish being killed… read more
That elusive flight shot We discovered a Great Spotted Woodpecker, Dendrocopos major, nest recently. It wasn't the obvious hole in the side of the tree which did it, it was the insistent noise from the chicks which made it blindingly obvious. Here's the male bringing in food to the nest. It's an opportunity to… read more
Great and spotted We've been spotted. There's a Great Spotted Woodpecker living its adventurous life nearby. Great Spotted Woodpeckers are large woodpeckers to us. They're actually only medium sized woodpeckers, it's just we don't have any of the large ones in the UK. Great Spotted Woodpeckers are closely related to Syrian Woodpeckers. They… read more
Pecking Wood The Great Spotted Woodpecker, Dendrocopos major, is a wonderful bird. This is a female coming in search of food at the WWF reserve Lago di Alviano: The signs here have a picture of the male on them. How do I know? Just look at that patch of red on his… read more
The Second Ladybird Book of British Birds #12 – The Great Spotted Woodpecker This handsome bird lives on the edges of woods, in orchards and large gardens. That's what The Second Ladybird Book of British Birds and their nests says: Here I am on the edge of a wood and there's a Great Spotted Woodpecker staring at me: This one is a female,… read more