Perhaps, from childhood, many are familiar with a noticeable and noisy forest bird in a red cap on its head. Of course, we are talking about woodpeckers. They are heard from spring to late autumn, but in winter it is not easy to see the bird, the knocking spreads through the forest, but the forest orderly himself is usually not visible. Woodpeckers hibernate in hollows, which they make for themselves in a very intricate way, however, some of the birds fly south.
Instructions
Step 1
Despite the fact that almost everyone has heard about the woodpecker, few people know about how these birds spend the difficult winter months.
Many of them, like other migratory birds, fly south, where climatic conditions are most acceptable for their residence.
Step 2
However, in most habitats, woodpeckers are found throughout the year. There is no exact data on why some of the birds remain to winter in Russian forests, while the other part goes to warm countries. When the cold weather sets in, the woodpeckers who have remained for the winter take refuge in the hollows prepared by them in advance.
Step 3
The woodpecker does not gouge a hollow, but pulls out a rotten trunk in the gut. Sawdust serves as a reliable protection from the cold. It is not uncommon for a cunning bird to steal branches and already folded nests from other birds. But the main problem during wintering for woodpeckers, as well as for other wintering birds, is far from being able to hide from the cold, but the problem of food.
Step 4
The habitual diet of a woodpecker in the summer is insects harvested from under the bark of trees, which in winter it is almost impossible to get. In rare cases, a woodpecker manages to find bark beetle larvae under the bark of diseased trees. A very curious fact is that, despite the limited possibilities of obtaining food in winter, the woodpecker easily shares its finds with other birds, often saving them in this way from starvation.
In autumn, a variety of forest berries - lingonberries, mountain ash, blueberries, become food for the woodpecker, but even they become inaccessible by the time the cold weather sets in. Spruce and pine seeds become the main food for woodpeckers in winter. The woodpecker organizes a kind of "smithy", where he brings cones and opens them.
Step 5
Feeders become a real salvation for woodpeckers in a hungry winter, as well as for most other birds wintering in the harsh Russian conditions. Cases of predatory behavior of woodpeckers are extremely rare - they ruin nests and destroy stocks of other birds, usually evidence of such cases appears in especially hungry winters, when it becomes almost impossible for even such a hard worker as a woodpecker to get food for themselves.
