European Green Woodpecker

Voice

A loud, run-together, slightly descending laugh, kyu-kyu-kyu-kyu, carrying a long way and heard all year but loudest from February to May. It drums only rarely, and then softly and hesitantly, which separates it at once from the pied woodpeckers. In flight a short hard kyuk.

Identification

Big and heavily built, green above with a yellow rump that flares as it flies off, a red crown running back to the nape and a black mask round a pale iris. The male has a red centre to the black moustache, the female an all-black one. Juveniles are heavily spotted and barred. Flight heavy and deeply undulating, usually low over grass.

Confusion species

In Iberia the key comparison is with Iberian Green Woodpecker, which has a greyer face with far less black around the eye, lacks the full black mask and is now treated as a separate species. Grey-headed Woodpecker is smaller and softer green, with a grey head, red confined to the forecrown in the male and no mask, and a clearly descending, fading call series.

Habitat

Half-open country: old estates, orchards, hedgerow timber, woodland edges and heaths, always with short ant-rich turf or bare sand within reach. Also golf courses, parks and large gardens with mature broadleaves in which to excavate a nest hole.

Range and movements

All of Europe except Ireland, Iceland and the far north. In the Netherlands common on the sandy soils, in dunes and on estates. In Spain it is replaced by Iberian Green Woodpecker across almost the whole peninsula; true Picus viridis breeds only in the Pyrenees and the extreme north-east. Resident.

• Resident
• Breeding (summer)
• Winter
• Passage
• dark = core range, pale = thinly spread

Where and when to look

In March and April walk an estate, dune edge or heath with short turf early in the day and listen for the laugh; then scan bare grass patches and ant hills. Birds flushed from the ground show the yellow rump. Mild, snow-free winters give the best chances of prolonged ground feeding.

Conservation status

Increasing in north-west Europe over recent decades thanks to mild winters and more closely grazed grassland, though severe winters with lasting snow cover cause temporary crashes. The loss of ant-rich unimproved grassland to fertilising, rank growth and scrub encroachment remains the main threat.