About:
At first sight, this bird is greenish olivy with a yellow bordered brush-like back of the neck. It has a rusty crown. It’s beak is long and grey. A rust- and black barred wing-edge and a long black inverted v-shaped tail. The belly is dull grey with a darker breast and having white bristles under the throat. The male has a yellow chin and the female brown.
We found one woodpecker on a neighbouring pear tree. It was lying flat on a branch of the tree. It was not doing much, just trying to keep itself low and well hidden.
Junior asking for food…
Then two others of its kind joined in and one of them started to peck on the pear. I found this to be a bit unusual as I didn’t know that woodpeckers feed on fruits too. So, I continued to watch them. The other was the hungry young one noisily asking for food by opening its beak. The one feeding on the pear flew and fed it.
The one with a broken beak…
It then went back, collected more pear and fed the one that had been lying low all this while. When this one opened its mouth to feed, we realised its beak was broken and when we reviewed our pictures later on, we realised that the one with the broken beak was the mother and the other two were the father and their young one.
Feeding his partner…
Then what was happening became clear. The male had the responsibility of feeding and caring for his partner and his young one. Wow…I thought. What a caring bird…!!!
Threats:
The summer season was very dry and I heard that a massive forest fire broke out in the region, the home of these birds. I have since been worried about these and of course, other birds that live there.
These birds make their nest in tree holes so rampant deforestation / tree felling is a very big threat.