Birdwatching - 3215🐦

🦉 The lesser spotted woodpecker (Picoides minor , synonym of Dryobates minor)

• Dryobates (Greek) : druos - forest, woodland, batēs - walker, stroller
• minor (Latin) - smaller

I saw this female woodpecker in the forest in autumn, she was in the company of nuthatches, great and willow tits and a treecreeper. It is very funny to watch how such a small woodpecker, the same size as those other birds, deftly crawls along the branches of trees.

They don't peck thick bark on tree trunks like large woodpeckers, but rather thin bark on tree branches. They only peck tree bark if the tree is rotten and the bark is loose, which causes dirty brown spots on their heads.