Tierisch Wild - Urlaub am Nationalpark Bayerischer Wald

The Woodpecker: BUILDING WITHOUT HEADACHES

If you go through the forest listening carefully, you can hear the knocking of a woodpecker. With his beak, he hammers against tree trunks in order to find food, to make nesting holes, to mark out his territory or to attract females. And in order not to get ‘headaches’ while doing this, the woodpecker has a particular adaptation: it has a strong, straight, chiselled beak, which has a springy connection to its skull. Most woodpeckers feed off insects, which they find in or under wood bark and in rotten wood.

Woodpeckers breed in holes which they make themselves or they use existing ones. They mainly move by climbing or hopping along the ground and don’t like flying long distances. Woodpeckers need groups of old trees with lots of dead wood. Because of the use of intensive forestry methods and the removal or salvage of wood, their habitats are gradually disappearing. The Bavarian Forest National Park is home to common woodpeckers such as the spotted woodpecker, black woodpecker and green woodpecker as well as more rare varieties such as the white backed woodpecker and the three-toed woodpecker. The natural dynamic of the forest in the National Park provides good conditions for most domestic varieties of woodpecker – due to the high proportion of dead wood, they always have good breeding conditions and plenty of food.