The great spotted woodpecker (Dendrocopos major) is a medium-sized woodpecker with pied black and white plumage and a red patch on the lower belly. Males and young birds also have red markings on the neck or head. This species is found across the Palearctic including parts of North Africa. Across most of its range it is resident, but in the north some will migrate if the conifer cone crop fails. Some individuals have a tendency to wander, leading to the recolonisation of Ireland in the first decade of the 21st century and to vagrancy to North America. Great spotted woodpeckers chisel into trees to find food or excavate nest holes, and also drum for contact and territorial advertisement; like other woodpeckers, they have anatomical adaptations to manage the physical stresses from the hammering action.
This woodpecker occurs in all types of woodlands and eats a variety of foods, being capable of extracting seeds from pine cones, insect larvae from inside trees or eggs and chicks of other birds from their nests. It breeds in holes excavated in living or dead trees, unlined apart from wood chips. The typical clutch is four to six glossy white eggs. Both parents incubate the eggs, feed the chicks, and keep the nest clean. When the young fledge they are fed by the adults for about ten days, each parent taking responsibility for feeding part of the brood.
The species is closely related to some other members of its genus. It has a number of subspecies, some of which are distinctive enough to be potential new species. It has a huge range and large population, with no widespread threats, so it is classed as a species of least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Taxonomy
Woodpeckers are an ancient bird family consisting of three subfamilies, the wrynecks, the piculets and the true woodpeckers, Picinae. The largest of the five tribes within the Picinae is Melanerpini, the pied woodpeckers, a group which includes the great spotted woodpecker. Within the genus Dendrocopos the great spotted woodpecker's closest relatives are the Himalayan, Sind, Syrian, white-winged woodpeckers and the Darjeeling woodpecker. The great spotted woodpecker has been recorded as hybridising with the Syrian woodpecker. It was moved to its current genus, Dendrocopos, by the German naturalist Carl Ludwig Koch in 1816. The genus name Dendrocopos is a combination of the Greek words dendron, "tree", and kopos, "striking". The specific major is from Latin maior, "greater".
Subspecies
Recognised subspecies vary by author from as few as 14 to nearly 30. This is largely because changes are clinal with many intermediate forms. However, mitochondrial DNA data suggests that the Caspian Sea region's Dendrocopos major poelzami, Japanese D. m. japonicus and Chinese D. m. cabanisi may all merit full species status. Despite its distinctive appearance, D. m. canariensis from Tenerife in the Canary Islands appears to be closely related to the nominate subspecies D. m. major.
The fossil subspecies D. m. submajor lived during the Middle Pleistocene Riss glaciation (250,000 to 300,000 years ago) when it was found in Europe south of the ice sheet. It is sometimes treated as a distinct species, but did not differ significantly from the extant great spotted woodpecker, whose European subspecies are probably its direct descendants.
Description
thumb|left|Female Dendrocopos major major
upright|thumb|A juvenile male [[foraging on a pine tree in Ystad.]]
An adult great spotted woodpecker is long, weighs and has a wingspan. although juvenile great spotted woodpeckers often have an incomplete cheek bar, so can potentially be misidentified as Syrian. The white-winged woodpecker has a far more extensive white wing patch than the great spotted woodpecker.
Voice
The call of the great spotted woodpecker is a sharp kik, which may be repeated as a wooden rattling krrarraarr if the bird is disturbed. The courtship call, gwig, is mostly given in the display flight. Drumming on dead trees and branches, and sometimes suitable man-made structures, As late as the early twentieth century it was thought that the drumming might be a vocalisation, and it was not until 1943 that it was finally proved to be purely mechanical.
Distribution and habitat
thumb|upright|Large trees provide habitat for excavating feeding holes.
The species ranges across Eurasia from Ireland to Japan, and in North Africa from Morocco to Tunisia; it is absent only from those areas too cold or dry to have suitable woodland habitat. Highland populations often descend to lower altitudes in winter. Juveniles also have a tendency to wander some distance from where they were hatched, often as far as , sometimes up to . but the island has been naturally recolonised, with the first proven nesting in County Down in 2007. Its expansion in range is continuing, with breeding proven or suspected in at least 10 counties by 2013, with the main concentration in Down and County Wicklow, and by 2021 had reached all counuties but Mayo. Genetic evidence shows the birds to be of British, rather than Scandinavian, ancestry, with the populations in Ireland and Northern Ireland having separate origins. The great spotted woodpecker was also found to have been nesting in the Isle of Man from 2009,
Behaviour
thumb|left|upright|Skull showing tongue and supporting structures.
The great spotted woodpecker spends much of its time climbing trees, and has adaptations to this lifestyle, many of which are shared by other woodpecker species. These include the zygodactyl arrangement of the foot, with two toes facing forward and two back, and the stiff tail feathers that are used as a prop against the trunk. In most birds the bones of the tail diminish in size towards its end, but this does not occur in woodpeckers, and the final vertebra, the pygostyle, is very large to anchor the strong tail muscles. In the great spotted woodpecker and most of its relatives, the hinge where the front of the skull connects with the upper mandible is folded inwards, tensioned by a muscle that braces it against the shock of the impact when the bill is hammering on hard wood. Skeletal adaptations and strengthening also help to absorb the shock, and narrow nostrils protect against flying debris.
Breeding
thumb|upright|Female feeding juvenile
Great spotted woodpeckers are strongly territorial, typically occupying areas of about year-round, which are defended mainly by the male, a behaviour which attracts females. Pairs are monogamous during the breeding period, but often change partners before the next season.
Sexual maturity is attained at an age of one year; courtship behaviour commences in the following December. The male has a fluttering flight display with shallow wingbeats and a spread tail. He calls in flight and may land at a prospective nest-site.
The pair excavate a new hole at least above the ground and usually lower than , although sometimes much higher. The chosen site is normally a tree, alive or dead, occasionally a utility pole or nest box. Old holes are rarely re-used, The nest cavity is deep with an entrance hole wide. It is excavated by both sexes, the male doing most of the chiselling.
thumb|upright|left|Egg
Trees chosen for nest holes have soft heartwood and tough sapwood, the former often due to parasites or diseases that weaken the tree's core. It is not certain how suitable trees are selected, although it may be by drumming, since woods with differing elastic modulus and density may transmit sound at different speeds. A Japanese study found nests in trees from many families; these included grey alder, Japanese white birch, Japanese hop-hornbeam, Japanese tree lilac, willows, Japanese larch and Sargent's cherry. The Mongolian oak and prickly castor-oil tree were rarely if ever used.
The typical clutch is four to six glossy white eggs that measure and weigh about , of which 7% is shell. They are laid from mid-April to June, the later dates being for birds breeding in the north of the range or at altitude. Crustaceans, molluscs and carrion may be eaten, and bird feeders are visited for seeds, suet and domestic scraps. House martin colonies can be destroyed in repeated visits.
Predators and parasites
thumb|Male caught by a male [[Eurasian sparrowhawk, in Moscow]]
Woodland birds of prey such as the Eurasian sparrowhawk and the Eurasian goshawk hunt the great spotted woodpecker. This woodpecker is a host of the blood-feeding fly Carnus hemapterus, and its internal parasites may include the spiny-headed worm Prosthorhynchus transversus. Protozoans also occur, including the potentially fatal Toxoplasma gondii, which causes toxoplasmosis. The great spotted woodpecker is the favoured host of the tapeworm Anomotaenia brevis.
Status
The total population for the great spotted woodpecker is estimated at 73.7–110.3 million individuals, with 35% of the population in Europe. The breeding range is estimated as , and the population is considered overall to be large and apparently stable or slightly increasing, especially in Britain, where the population has recently overspilled into Ireland. For this reason the great spotted woodpecker is evaluated as a species of least concern by the IUCN.