The indefatigable woodpeckers sometimes knock on the tree for hours, earning their own food. Such behavior has long been raising questions among people – but how does this bird feel at all, using its head as a hammer? However, scientists have long understood the physiology of woodpeckers and found that nature perfectly adapted them to such a peculiar way of finding food.
In warm places, on the other side of the world, sucker woodpeckers live, a significant proportion of the diet of which is tree sap. After they get drunk, hummingbirds, who also love him, but cannot get it on their own, flock to the holes they made. Gila woodpeckers that live on giant carnegie cacti live in North and Central America. At the same time, they eat insects that harm these plants. Earthen woodpeckers make holes not in the tree bark, but directly in the soil. They feed on insects that live in its upper layer. The plumage of woodpeckers is stiff and sharp. You can even cut yourself on the tip of such a pen. Once, due to woodpeckers, American astronauts went into space with a significant delay, as a pre-launch check revealed that woodpeckers pierced about two hundred holes in the outer layer of the space shuttle’s thermal insulation.
Acorn woodpeckers store oak acorns, their main food, in the holes that they make in the trunks of these same oaks. Ordinary woodpeckers like to feast on ants, which are very many under the bark of many old trees. At one time, an adult woodpecker can easily eat up to a thousand pieces. On the feet of woodpeckers, two fingers are directed forward, and two more – back. At the same time, all other birds have three fingers pointing forward, and only one finger backwards. Some species of woodpeckers, for example, large spotted ones, willingly eat other people’s eggs and even chicks if possible. The energy of the impact of the beak on the tree is amortized by a special cartilaginous tissue located between the skull and, in fact, the beak of the woodpecker.
Each time this bird strikes, a special muscle moves its skull away from its beak. All birds use tail feathering as a rudder, but for woodpeckers, the tail also serves as a support with which they climb trees. From this use, the stiff tail feathers are erased, and in a year the tail loses up to 1/10 of its length. The woodpecker’s nostrils located on the beak are covered with stiff hair, which protects the lungs from wood dust. Woodpeckers are capable of inflicting up to 20 hits on a tree per second. For unknown reasons, tits are very fond of occupying empty woodpecker nests if they are found. With the help of a loud knock on a tree, woodpeckers let relatives know that the territory is already occupied. 220 different species of these birds live on Earth. The largest of them weigh up to 400-500 grams, and the smallest – less than 10 grams. Woodpeckers spend most of their lives in trees. Of course, they know how to fly, but they do not like this activity too much. The woodpecker’s skull is larger in relation to its body size than most other birds. Of all species of woodpeckers, only acorns live in packs. All the rest lead either a single or a pair lifestyle.
