Listen to the Grey-headed woodpecker
Tip: press play to see the sound's live frequency spectrum in blue over the waveform.
About the Grey-headed woodpecker
The Grey-headed woodpecker is a bird in the family Picidae (order Piciformes). Its conservation status on the IUCN Red List is “least concern”.
What does the Grey-headed woodpecker sound like?
Most birds have two kinds of vocalisation: songs, which are learned or innate phrases delivered mainly in spring and summer, and calls – brief contact, alarm and begging notes heard all year round. Listening for both helps with identification.
The recordings here are labelled as call, drumming and flight call. Listen for differences in rhythm, pitch and repetition – the spectrum display makes it easy to see whether a sound is a pure whistle (a thin line), a harsh call (a broad band) or a trill (rapid repeated marks).
From Wikipedia
The grey-headed woodpecker (Picus canus), also known as the grey-faced woodpecker, is a Eurasian member of the woodpecker family, Picidae. Along with the more commonly found European green woodpecker and the Iberian green woodpecker, it is one of three closely related species found in Europe. Its distribution also stretches across large parts of the central and Eastern Palaearctic, all the way to the Pacific Ocean and south to the Himalaya and the Malay Peninsula.
The grey-headed woodpecker is more demanding than the European green woodpecker in terms of its habitat. It prefers deciduous forest with a high proportion of dead trees, feeding primarily on ants, although not being as exclusively dependent on this group as the green woodpecker. The grey-headed woodpecker's nest is typically excavated into dead or severely damaged trees.
Related birds in the genus Picus
More from the family Picidae
Great spotted woodpecker
Dendrocopos major
Black woodpecker
Dryocopus martius
Eurasian wryneck
Jynx torquilla
Lesser spotted woodpecker
Dryobates minor
Eurasian three-toed woodpecker
Picoides tridactylus
Northern flicker
Colaptes auratus
Pileated woodpecker
Dryocopus pileatus
Black-rumped flameback
Dinopium benghalense
Red-headed woodpecker
Melanerpes erythrocephalus
Acorn woodpecker
Melanerpes formicivorus
Red-bellied woodpecker
Melanerpes carolinus
Frequently asked questions
What does a Grey-headed woodpecker sound like?
You can hear 4 recordings of the Grey-headed woodpecker on this page, including its call, drumming and flight call. Most birds have two kinds of vocalisation: songs, which are learned or innate phrases delivered mainly in spring and summer, and calls – brief contact, alarm and begging notes heard all year round.
Is the Grey-headed woodpecker endangered?
The IUCN Red List classifies the Grey-headed woodpecker as “least concern”.
What family does the Grey-headed woodpecker belong to?
The Grey-headed woodpecker (Picus canus) belongs to the family Picidae in the order Piciformes.
Sources & credits
- Call · Šarkanica, Tisovec, Rimavská Sobota District, Banská… by Alexander Kürthy – CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
- Call · Šarkanica, Tisovec, Rimavská Sobota District, Banská… by Alexander Kürthy – CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
- Call, drumming · Hlubočec, Opava, Moravskoslezský kraj, Czech Republic by Matěj Tvarůžka – CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
- Call, flight call · Kallvik, Helsinki, Uusimaa, Finland by Hannu Varkki – CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
- Wikidata Q201106 – CC0
- Wikipedia: Grey-headed woodpecker – CC BY-SA 4.0
- Photo by Andrey Tsvirenko – CC BY-SA 3.0