Birdwatching - 1959 🐦

🦉 The black woodpecker (Dryocopus martius)

• Dryocopus (Greek): drys, dendron - tree; kopos, koptō - hit
• martius (lat.) : warlike, fighting; March

These large, graceful woodpeckers are quite loud and noisy, especially in the spring during the mating season. They feed on insects, and these are often pests, which makes this woodpecker very useful for the forest. But they can also occasionally eat berries, which happens in winter.

And with the onset of spring, when the snow has almost melted and ants appear, woodpeckers eat these ants with pleasure.
Sexual dimorphism is pronounced; the male has a long red cap covering his entire head, and the female has a small red spot on the back of her head.