Woodpeckers are part of the bird family Picidae, which also includes the piculets, wrynecks, and sapsuckers. Members of this family are found worldwide, except for Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand, Madagascar, and the extreme polar regions. Most species live in forests or woodland habitats, although a few species are known that live in treeless areas, such as rocky hillsides and deserts, and the Gila woodpecker specializes in exploiting cacti.
Members of this family are chiefly known for their characteristic behavior. They mostly forage for insect prey on the trunks and branches of trees, and often communicate by drumming with their beaks, producing a reverberatory sound that can be heard at some distance. Some species vary their diet with fruits, birds' eggs, small animals, tree sap, human scraps, and carrion. They usually nest and roost in holes that they excavate in tree trunks, and their abandoned holes are of importance to other cavity-nesting birds. They sometimes come into conflict with humans when they make holes in buildings or feed on fruit crops, but perform a useful service by their removal of insect pests on trees.
Woodpeckers range from tiny piculets, the smallest of which appears to be the bar-breasted piculet at 3.0 inches in length and a weight of 0.31 oz. Some of the largest woodpeckers can be more than 20 inches in length. The largest surviving species is the great slaty woodpecker, which weighs 15 oz. on average and up to 19.9 oz., and measures 18 to 22 inches, but the extinct imperial woodpecker, at 22 to 24 inches, and ivory-billed woodpecker, around 19 to 21 inches and 18.2 oz., were probably both larger.
The plumage of woodpeckers varies from drab to conspicuous. The colors of many species are based on olive and brown and some are pied, suggesting a need for camouflage; others are boldly patterned in black, white, and red, and many have a crest or tufted feathers on their crowns. Woodpeckers tend to be sexually dimorphic, but differences between the sexes are generally small; exceptions to this are Williamson's sapsucker and the orange-backed woodpecker, which differ markedly. The plumage is moulted fully once a year apart from the wrynecks, which have an additional partial moult before breeding.
Woodpeckers have a mostly cosmopolitan distribution, although they are absent from Australasia, Madagascar, and Antarctica. They are also absent from some of the world's oceanic islands, although many insular species are found on continental islands. The true woodpeckers, subfamily Picinae, are distributed across the entire range of the family. The Picumninae piculets have a pantropical distribution, with species in Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Neotropics, with the greatest diversity being in South America. The second piculet subfamily, the Nesoctitinae, has a single member, the Antillean piculet, which is restricted to the Caribbean island of Hispaniola. The wrynecks (Jynginae) are found exclusively in the Old World, with the two species occurring in Europe, Asia, and Africa.
Most woodpeckers live solitary lives, but their behaviour ranges from highly antisocial species that are aggressive towards their own kind, to species that live in groups. Solitary species defend such feeding resources as a termite colony or fruit-laden tree, driving away other conspecifics and returning frequently until the resource is exhausted. Aggressive behaviors include bill pointing and jabbing, head shaking, wing flicking, chasing, drumming, and vocalisations. Ritual actions do not usually result in contact, and birds may "freeze" for a while before they resume their dispute. The coloured patches may be flouted, and in some instances, these antagonistic behaviours resemble courtship rituals.
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- 1/2 pound elbow macaroni or shells
- 8 ounces cooked shrimp, drained and coarsely chopped
- 1 tomato, diced
- 1 onion, diced
- 2 hard-boiled eggs, diced
- 1 tablespoon seafood seasoning
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 3/4 cup mayonnaise
- Salt to taste
- Black pepper to taste
- In a large pot of boiling water, prepare pasta according to package directions; drain.
- In a large bowl, toss pasta with remaining ingredients. Cover and chill before serving.
