Grey-headed Woodpecker

The grey-headed woodpecker, or grey-faced woodpecker, is a Eurasian woodpecker 25–26cm long with a 38–40cm wingspan, weighing about 125g. The male of the nominate subspecies has a grey head with a red patch on the forehead. It is more demanding than the European green woodpecker in its habitat needs, and its nest is typically excavated in dead or severely damaged trees (Wikipedia, general species account).

Its distribution stretches across large parts of the central and eastern Palearctic to the Pacific and south to the Himalaya and the Malay Peninsula. It prefers deciduous forest with a high proportion of dead trees and feeds primarily on ants, though it is not as exclusively dependent on them as the green woodpecker. It breeds in May, laying five to ten eggs brought up by both parents (Wikipedia, general species account).