Overview of the Star-headed Woodpecker
Range: Central, southern, eastern and northeastern China.
Morphological characteristics: small, dark brown on the top of the head, black brown and white stripes all over the body, similar to male and female, male and female pillow with red.
Habitat: Broad-leaved mixed forest, mixed wood forest, scattered trees on the edge of the village.
Life habits: chiseling tree holes for nests, feeding on cattle beetles and ant bugs.
Protection level: Non-hazardous (uncommon).
Every year in April, various birds enter the breeding season.
On the morning of a rest day after May 1, 2014, although I had not yet found information about the bird's nest, the breath of revival of all things made me impatient to go out for a walk.
Driving out of the city, the ghost sent a god to my friend's house in the village of the bird shooting base, and was nagging at home, and heard someone outside the door shouting the name of the friend, and asked, Is your friend who shoots birds coming?
It turned out that the old brother of the village sheep herding saw my car parked at the entrance of a friend's yard, he knew that I was coming, he suddenly remembered that when the sheep were herded a few days ago, he found a bird's nest in a tree hole in the poplar forest at the east end of the village, saying that the little bird could show its head, it was quite big to fly, and if I didn't see my car today, I couldn't remember this kind of thing.
Without further ado, I drove my friend and my sheep-herding brother straight to the poplar forest on the east side of the village, and the car was parked in a small river channel with no water on the edge of the woods, and the morning sun shone in the poplar forest with few leaves, which looked very bright.
This bird's nest is not far from the woods on a half-cut poplar trunk, two meters 67 from the ground, the tree hole is a fresh section, trimmed very round and regular, so it should be judged that this should be the nest of woodpeckers. Because other birds may also use the woodpecker's nest to incubate eggs, but the hole will not be re-repaired, only the woodpecker has the exclusive ability to chisel the tree hole!
During the conversation, I found a bird flying towards this side in the distance, constantly strung between the poplar trees, looking at the wavy up and down flight posture, it should be a woodpecker. So I hurried to set up a tent in a shunguang position a few meters away, and my friend and the sheep herding brother went to the river to smoke.
The cat was in the tent, playing a few samples from a distance, and the initial judgment was that it was a woodpecker, but not a large class. Immediately the phone Baidu, determined that it is a star-headed woodpecker, and filled a gap in my shooting of bird brooding.
While waiting, I suddenly found that the mouth of the tree hole revealed a small mouth, and then probed out of the brain melon, it seems that this little guy is really hungry, perhaps heard the sound of the kissing bird returning, anxious to look out at the situation.
Perhaps seeing the chicks with their heads exposed, the parent bird did not hesitate and flew straight to the mouth of the tree hole, and the chick opened its mouth to welcome the food (insects) brought back by the parent bird. This parent bird has no red dots on the pillow and should be a female parent bird. (To be continued)
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