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The Probert Encyclopaedia of Nature

WOODPECKER

Woodpecker is a general name for the members of the large Picidae family of birds of the order Scansores, which is usually regarded as including two sub- families - the woodpeckers proper (Picus) and the soft-tailed wrynecks (Yunx) . The woodpeckers are climbing birds, the feet having two anterior and two posterior toes. The head is large and the neck very muscular and the tongue exceedingly long and worm-like with a barbed horny tip. It can be shot out to a great distance, and is sticky so that the insects upon which the birds feed stick to it.

All woodpeckers are shy solitary birds inhabiting woods. When in search of food they climb trees in a spiral fashion, clinging closely with the claws assisted by the tail. At the breeding season the woodpecker excavates a hole in the stem of a tree at first horizontal and then downward to the depth of thirty centimetres or more. At the bottom of the excavation the pure white eggs are laid.
Research Woodpecker

 
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