A woodpecker is a type of bird with a long sharp beak. Woodpeckers use their beaks to make holes in tree trunks. a bird with a long beak that it uses to make holes in trees. Any of about 180 species (family Picidae) of mostly nonmigratory, solitary birds found nearly worldwide. Woodpeckers spiral up tree trunks, probing for insects, and chisel nest holes in dead wood by means of rapidly repeating blows of the beak. Though they spend their entire life in trees, only the few ground-feeding species can perch. Some species eat fruits and berries or tree sap. Woodpeckers are usually silent, except in spring, when males call loudly and drum on hollow wood. Species range from 6 to 18 in. (15 to 46 cm) long. All have a straight, chisel-like bill, and most are patterned in black, white, or yellow and bright colours. See also flicker; ivory-billed woodpecker; sapsucker
bird with strong claws and a stiff tail adapted for climbing and a hard chisel-like bill for boring into wood for insects
Black-and-white woodpecker (Campephilus principalis) with a flaring crest (red on the male) and a long whitish bill. The largest North American woodpecker, it is thought to be extinct, though there were unconfirmed sightings of the bird in the southern United States in the late 1990s; a small population on Cuba was last seen in the late 1980s. Its decline coincided with the logging of virgin forest, where it subsisted on deadwood insects. A subspecies, the Cuban ivory-billed woodpecker, is also believed to be extinct. A related species, the imperial woodpecker of Mexico, is critically endangered. All these birds appear to have required large trees and isolation from disturbance