woodpecker

a kind of bird – small to medium-sized bird with white, black, brown, green and red feather colours with patches of red and yellow on head and belly, cone-shaped head with relatively large, sharp, pointed beak (bill) with a sticky, barbed tongue, short, strong neck, slender looking body with sickle-shaped wings, short legs with toes – the first and the fourth facing forward and the second and third facing backward, relatively long, stiff tail; size: the smallest – Japanese pygmy woodpecker – only 6 inches long, and weight: 25 (?) grams, (or the closely related ‘bar-breasted piculet’ – only 3 inches long, and weight 7-10 grams), and the largest – the ‘great-slaty woodpecker — 1½ feet long and weight: 450-500 grams (or the “supposedly extinct” ivory-billed woodpecker — 1½-2 feet long, and weight: 500 grams); feeds on (eats) insects, insect larvae, caterpillars, and fruit, nuts and sap (‘sap’ = a kind of thick fluid that comes out of trees); lives for 4-10 years; about 200-216 (?) species, found all over the world, except Australia, New Zealand, Madagascar and some remote islands

male ~~ cock

female ~~ hen

baby ~~ chick

group ~~ descent, gatling

voice (call) ~~ {no particular name}

home ~~ nest (holes made in the tree trunks)

Special Features:

The ‘Puerto Rican woodpecker’ is the territory bird of Puerto Rico, a part of the USA in the Caribbean Islands.

The ‘Okinawa woodpecker’ is the province bird of Okinawa, Japan.

Woodpeckers are interesting birds with their strong, pointed beak (bill), about 4 inches long in some large species.  They ‘excavate’ (probe, chip out) insects, and grub lodged under the barks of trees using their ‘chisel sharp’ beaks and sticky-tipped and barbed 4 inch-long tongues!  Woodpeckers also make large holes (nests) in the tree trunks  to lay eggs and raise the chicks, and to rest at nights!

The strong, sharp claws (two forward facing and two backward facing) of woodpeckers help them to cling tight to the branches while making holes in them.  Woodpeckers can walk vertically up a tree.   And the stiff tail feathers also help these birds to maintain good balance while clinging to the branches vertically!

In addition to the usual, limited vocal sounds (calls), woodpeckers use the ‘tap … tap’ sound of chipping the wood for communication!

The amazing thing about woodpeckers is that even after hammering the wood to find food or to make nests for hours and days on end, the woodpeckers do not get their brains damaged, nor do they get any head-aches.  This is because they have relatively small brains, in the first place, and secondly, those small brains are located in a safe position in the skull protected by ‘shock-absorber-like’ thick bone!!

The ‘ground woodpecker’ is one of a very few species of woodpecker that live entirely on the ground!

woody woodpecker

The popular ‘woody woodpecker’ has been featured in comics and cartoons for several years now, and is one of the most popular comic and cartoon characters!

The woodpecker is also seen in the logos of several business establishments, and there are some popular music bands making some popular albums!!

Figures of Speech:

1.

woodpecker (noun)  =

2.

as worn-out (or exhausted) as a woodpecker in a forest  =  very tired

3.

woodpeckers don’t breed sparrow-hawks (‘sparrow-hawk’ = a kind of bird of prey known to kill and feed on other small birds) [said to imply that one cannot expect the children to be better than their parents, i.e. if the parents have bad habits or behaviour, the children also tend to have the same habits or behaviour]

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