Spend three minutes watching seven species of woodpeckers do what they do best: peck wood at speeds averaging 18–22 times per second, totaling around 12,000 times a day. Woodpeckers do this characteristic activity to reveal a meal of insects or sap, communicate their claim to a territory, or sometimes to carve out a shelter from the elements for their young.
“Excavating nests happens slower, but requires more force,” the Audubon notes.
“Woodpeckers sometimes slam into trees with 1200g’s of force—greatly surpassing the less than 100g’s that can cause concussions in humans.
“Given these extreme physical demands, it’s unsurprising that woodpeckers’ ability to avoid injury has long sparked curiosity among birders, physicians, biologists, and even engineers.”
Studies have suggested that the birds have built-in shock absorption, but research from 2016 suggests that “size and orientation of the bird’s brain safeguard it.” From Science magazine:
“Even the strongest of wood pecks left the bird brains with less than 60% of the pressure needed to give a human brain a concussion. In addition, woodpeckers may contain specialized mechanisms to prevent and repair minor brain trauma.”
The featured species in this BalYanak TV video, listed in order, appear to include a Black Woodpecker, a Great Spotted Woodpecker, a Lineated Woodpecker, a Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker, a Red-bellied Woodpecker, a Eurasian or American Three-toed Woodpecker, another Great Spotted Woodpecker, and a what might be a Gray-capped Pygmy Woodpecker.
Watch these related videos next:
• You’d Never Guess What an Acorn Woodpecker Eats
• A Yellow Shafted Northern Flicker Woodpecker takes a bath
• A Pileated Woodpecker, Blue Jays, and more on Cornell FeederWatch
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