📌Know anything about Peckers ? (Original wildlife photos and thoughts)

Largest are 20 inches and smallest are 4 inches!!

.

Nope - This is not a cleverly disguised reference to a four letter word!!

Nor is it a reference to the once popular Woody Woodpecker -a phenomena that took kids by storm in early days of the television.

I have nothing against Woody Woodpecker - mind you. As a Disney toon, the character was funny I suppose. However, the humor would be lost on most of the Steemians - who probably were not even born when Woody Woodpecker had center stage on television!

I am talking about real woodpeckers. Yes - those birds who are mostly known as headbangers who keep incessantly attacking defenseless trees to bore holes in them!

Last week, in a jungle in southern India, I happened to capture on camera (my trusty Nikon P900), a specimen known as Streak throated woodpecker. Here is the Hi-res image.

---

---

The bird kept pecking away at the tree for more than half an hour. I got tired watching it but the bird just carried on. What patience and resilience!!

I naturally got curious and found out a few interesting facts about these wonders of nature.

"Even the woodpecker owes his success to the fact that he uses his head and keeps pecking away until he finishes the job he starts” - Coleman Cox

• There are over 180 species of woodpeckers around the world but none of them exist in Australia, Madagascar and New Zealand!

• Woodpeckers have a long, barbed tongue. Depending on the size of the woodpecker, the tongue can be up to 4 inches long and it is kept coiled around the skull inside the mouth!

• Woodpeckers peck around 20 times a minute and peck up to 12000 pecks per day!! What a racket they must create!!

• Woodpeckers use the pecking for drumming on hollow trees, pipes or any other hollow objects to create resonating sound. This is their form of communication for mating calls!!

• The woodpecker's skull in reinforced and it's brain is cushioned to protect it from the impact that the pecking creates

• Woodpeckers have zagodactyl feet ( two toes pointing forward and one backward) with large talons, This gives them a very firm grip, even in a vertical or inverted position on the tree.

• Two largest species of woodpecker are unfortunately extinct (Imperial woodpecker and ivory billed woodpecker). The largest surviving woodpecker is probably the slaty woodpecker, which measures up to 20 inches. The smallest ones are the piculet woodpeckers and are only 3-4 inches in size.

• Loss of habitat is the biggest threat to the woodpecker population around the world. Let us all be more sympathetic to conserving the habitat of these lovely birds.

In Conclusion:

Woodpeckers peck and peck - what a racket they make!

Steemians, please comment freely to share your experiences, knowledge and views about Woodpeckers. Let us spread awareness about them and stop the loss of their habitat Thanks

Note: All images except for the wildlife photo and the title image created by me are from pixabay.com.

Gif crafted by the Legendary @stellabelle for me