Great Spotted Woodpecker

Description:

A pleasant surprise yesterday morning, when this fella decided to pose for me on one of my feeders. Great Spotted woodpecker is the regular resident in our counties, and I observe (or hear) them regularly and all-year-round. They are roughly the size of Blackbird, mainly black and white, with red vent. As mentioned above, this one is male, recognized by that red patch on the nape; the red patch is absent in females (female in one of my previous spottings, here: https://www.projectnoah.org/spottings/35...). Juveniles, occurring during summer, could be confused with their cousin, Middle Spotted woodpecker because they sport bright red crown.

Habitat:

This series of pics are part of my "From my window" series - seen in the backyard of our residence building, at outskirts of a small urban center in Geneva lake valley. The backyard counts a number of deciduous trees and shrubs, most of them spontaneous and local, some planted. The backyard neighbours a meadow (used for producing hay) and a lowland deciduous (mainly oak and beech) forest, and some other agricultural fields.