Green Woodpecker Picus viridis

The colourful Green Woodpecker is native to temperate Europe, Turkey and the Caucasus. It has a bright red cap, red moustache bordered with black (male) and blue-white irises.

It will visit gardens looking for ants' nests.

It has a call like a car alarm or cackling laugh (called a yaffle).

The female Green Woodpecker has similar plumage but with a black moustache.

Its close relative, the Grey-headed Woodpecker, Picus canus, overlaps its range in continental Europe and into Russia but is not prevalent in the UK.

The juvenile is similar but with a speckled front and back. (Photo above right by Dr Harsha Vardhan Reddy, taken in France.)

Although called a woodpecker, it is more usually seen digging its beak in grass looking for insects, especially ants. Woodpeckers have extremely long, sticky tongues to scoop out insects.