Wildlife Wednesday — Three-Toed Woodpecker

By Andy Ames

Have you ever wondered why the Three-toed woodpecker only has three toes? Most birds have four toes with three pointing forward and one pointing back. Woodpeckers (as well as parrots, owls, and Osprey) have zygodactyl feet, however, meaning they have two toes pointing forward and two pointing back. This is great for gripping, in the case of the parrot, owl, and Osprey, as well as standing on vertical surfaces in the case of woodpeckers so they are able to inflict strong forces into the hard wood of a tree with their bill. Not all the woodpecker’s toes are in a fixed position and you will often see an outer toe rotated to the side and the small inner toe tucked under the foot.

It is actually unknown why the Three-toed woodpecker lost a toe but maybe it was detrimental to its foraging technique. Three-toed woodpeckers tend to move backwards down a tree while feeding and scale the bark away with a flicking stroke of the bill. They can spend a long time on a single tree so if you see a lot of bark chips at the base of a tree, that may be the work of a Three-toed woodpecker.

Female Three-toed woodpeckers tend to forage high in trees. Many woodpeckers use their stiff tail feathers for extra support against the trunk.

Male Three-toed woodpeckers can be identified by the yellow patch on their foreheads and tend to feed lower on tree trunks.

A male Three-toed woodpecker foraging for bark beetles on a downed tree.

Three-toed woodpeckers strike and flick bark away in a single stroke. They are looking for bark beetles which lie just below the bark so don’t have to drill far into the trunk.

Three-toed woodpeckers favor disturbed areas of forest. Disturbances may include fire, floods, wind events, disease, or beetle outbreaks.