Ivory-Billed Woodpecker

John James Audubon’s Ivory-billed Woodpecker is from his work The Birds of North America (1827-1838). Audubon depicted the birds clinging to trees, where they dig holes in the trunks with their beaks in order to detect and extract insects. Their sharp-tipped, straight beaks and extensile tongues are well-adapted for this purpose.

Bridgeman Art Library, London/New York

Downy Woodpecker

The downy woodpecker is one of the smallest woodpeckers in the United States. Unlike its cousins, the downy woodpecker has a much smaller bill and uses its stiff tail feathers to prop itself while probing for insects.

D. Wrigglesworth/Oxford Scientific Films/Library of Natural Sounds, Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology, Geoffrey A. Keller. All rights reserved.

Common Flicker

The yellow under the wings and tail, and the red crescent on the nape of the neck, make the common flicker one of the most colourful species of true woodpeckers. It ranges from Alaska to Newfoundland and south throughout the United States east of the Rockies to Florida. The common flicker usually inhabits lightly wooded areas but is also found in thickly wooded and burned-out forest areas. It feeds mainly on ants, which it picks up with its long, sticky tongue.

Judd Cooney/Phototake NYC/BBC Natural History Sound Library. All rights reserved.

Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker

The yellow-bellied sapsucker, Sphyrapicus varius, a member of the woodpecker family, is a migratory species found as far south as Panama and as far north as southeastern Alaska or Newfoundland. It is called a sapsucker because it drills small holes, or "wells," in the sides of trees and then draws out sap with its long brush-tipped tongue. Yellow-bellied sapsuckers also eat berries, as well as insects that are attracted to the sap.

Shattil and Rozinski/Oxford Scientific Films/BBC Natural History Sound Library. All rights reserved.

Syrian Woodpecker

The Syrian woodpecker (Dendrocopoc syriacus) is found in southern Europe and occasionally central Europe. It lives in open countryside with plenty of trees. It pecks at trees to excavate a hole that acts as a nest, but also, through sound, to make contact with other birds of the same species.

Stephen Dalton/Photo Researchers, Inc.

Woodpecker Feeding

The woodpecker eats mainly insects, which it detects by tapping the wood of trees with its bill. Whilst clinging to the trunk of the tree, it excavates the insects with pickaxe-like strokes of its bill. It has a sharp, straight, chisel-shaped bill and a long, extensile tongue with a hard, spear-shaped tip which it uses to extract its food from within the hole it has dug in the wood.

© Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved.