"Giggling, clucking, clucking...", woodpecker Woody's demonic laughter is still unforgettable, whether in animation or in books, woodpecker has always appeared as a "forest guard", which has always maintained a positive image in our hearts.
But people like probably just that Woody in the anime, and when you meet the real woodpeckers, can you still like them?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > the truth about woodpeckers</h1>
For a long time, the image of the woodpecker was misunderstood by many people, and many post-80s and post-90s were influenced by the cartoon "Woodpecker Woody", and preconceived that the woodpecker looked like this:
Often referred to as the "Dai Sheng" of woodpeckers
This bird named "Dai Sheng" is often mistaken for a woodpecker, with a long crown and a pointed beak, which, despite the coat color, is indeed more similar to the woodpecker in the cartoon, the real woodpecker has a red crown, is small, and the mouth is not as sharp as in the animation, and the exaggerated expression of the animation has caused this misunderstanding.
The real woodpecker actually looks like this:
Woody the woodpecker in the animation is a bird that likes to play pranks, he likes to bully pandas, and peck out holes in other people's good houses, these plots are not made up out of thin air, but have a realistic basis.
In North America, some woodpeckers peck at the wooden houses of local residents, and their "evil deeds" do not stop there.
This is a tree treated by woodpeckers, and it is hard to imagine what serious illness this tree has caused this woodpecker doctor to carry out such a large-scale surgical operation, this treatment method, I am afraid that in the end, the worms are gone, and the trees are gone. Isn't it a good forest guard? It's all about a demolition captain.
When more of the woodpecker's evil deeds were exposed, the woodpecker "bird setting" completely collapsed, so the "woodpecker is a pest bird or a beneficial bird" debate began to be rampant.
Caution: The following, dense phobias should be entered with caution
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" what evils did the woodpecker do >? </h1>
In the oak forest on the southwest coast of North America, there is an oak tree woodpecker, in their habitat, often find that the surface of some trees is densely distributed with honeycomb-like small holes, very frightening, walk into a look, you will find that these small holes are actually acorns, trunks of the long acorns, this is the masterpiece of woodpeckers.
The granary of the oak woodpecker
Oak woodpeckers are very unusual woodpeckers, they feed on insects and nuts, have the habit of storing food, every autumn and winter, they will make a hole in the tree, put an acorn in each hole, they use the trunk as a warehouse for storing grain, a grain storage tree, there will be about 5,000 small holes.
Although a woodpecker pecks wood an average of 12,000 times a day, it is certainly not possible for a bird more than 20 centimeters to complete such a huge project. Oak woodpeckers are social birds that help each other in the process of reproduction, and some birds that have not yet given birth will shoulder the responsibility of raising chicks as "helpers", so they can complete such a miracle.
Oak tree woodpecker
But the miracle of the woodpecker is a nightmare for the trees, which is evidence that some people assert that the woodpecker is a pest bird. But the oak woodpecker is really wronged!
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > doctor-patient conflict in the forest</h1>
Oak woodpecker although in the surface of the tree to make a lot of holes, looks very infiltrative, but in fact, oak woodpecker grain storage holes are generally hit on the trees that have withered, if there is really a healthy tree unfortunately selected, it is likely not to hurt the bones, oak woodpeckers hit the hole is generally shallow, will not hurt the catheter inside the tree.
In addition to the oak woodpecker, the North American black woodpecker (Pileated woodpecker) is another kind of woodpecker that has been criticized, and it has more amazing digging skills than the oak woodpecker, often digging deep into the tree, sometimes because of too much investment, resulting in tree death, which is considered medical malpractice.
You can't deny all doctors just because a doctor killed one patient. The North American black woodpecker can only be regarded as an inadvertent mistake, and the real forest destroyer is someone else.
Sap sucking woodpeckers are forest vampires, this kind of woodpeckers live on the sap of the tree, they peck a hole in the bark of healthy maple and birch trees, the sap will flow along the wound, they can eat a full meal, but the wound of the tree will soon be repaired, they will peck at new wounds, over time, the trees will be devastated.
Juice-sucking woodpeckers
Juice-sucking woodpecker is a rat in the woodpecker world, but it is a minority after all, there are about 217 species of woodpeckers in the world, among the many woodpeckers, there is only the juice-sucking woodpecker, which is a strange flower, and we cannot completely deny the merits of woodpeckers because there is a black sheep in the team.
Shandong Taishan Academy of Forestry sciences once carried out experiments in more than 1,000 acres of woods for 3 consecutive years, and found that woodpeckers have a good control effect on pests such as tianniu and yellow thorn moth, among them, the bare-shouldered star tianniu alone has been reduced from the original 100 trees and 80 larvae to 0.8 larvae.
It can be seen that the role of woodpeckers on ecosystems is generally more harmful than beneficial.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > birds are good or bad, people have likes and dislikes</h1>
Back to the question of whether woodpeckers are beneficial insects or pests, in fact, where are birds good or bad, the existence of anything is a double-edged sword, even the best medicine hurts the body, even the best doctors have mistakes, but we are because of our own preferences, to classify animals, which has all kinds of prejudices and misunderstandings.
Woodpeckers have always been woodpeckers, never "forest doctors" or "demolition captains", and each woodpecker has its own way of living.
Woodpeckers don't all eat only bugs, and woodpeckers that eat bugs don't all eat bugs in the trunk, and woodpeckers that eat bugs in the trunk don't peck the tree with a big hole every time they find the bugs.
Woodpeckers never peck wood to cure trees or anything, they just want to find food, store food, build nests and breed. And we have wishfully given them the unwarranted personality of "forest doctor".
We always like to label all kinds of things into categories, and over time, we think that the label represents the thing itself, but in fact, woodpeckers are sometimes quacks, sometimes good doctors, seven-star ladybugs are beneficial insects, but other ladybugs are pests, and each creature is not simple, can not be said in a word.