Three-toed Woodpecker (Picoides tridactylus)

Three-toed Woodpecker, Pripyatskiy National Park, Belarus, 4/5/13

The Three-toed is a quiet and elusive woodpecker that lives in old dense forests with lots of dead and fallen trees. Here it specialises on eating the larvae and pupae of wood-boring beetles, pecking, hammering and tearing strips of bark away to get at them. It is strongly drawn to areas where the forest has been affected by heavy insect infestation, or fire, or wind and avalanche damage – anywhere where foraging has been made easier. The Three-toed Woodpecker is also especially fond of making holes in wood and drinking sap from them.

There are two discrete populations in Europe, one in the lowland spruce and fir forests of the northern taiga belt, the other on high altitude steep spruce-covered slopes on Central European mountainsides. It is just possible that these geographically isolated populations represent different species.