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Woodpeckers are equipped through evolution for the vertical life. There are few horizontals for them, and when the Red-bellied Woodpecker lands on the platform feeder, he clings to the edge in a vertical position and reaches for a sunflower seed. He quickly takes the seed to the upper trunk of a maple. There he securely wedges the seed in a bark crevice and,, in a vertical position, whacks away at the hard coating with his powerful bill.
For clinging to tree trunks and limbs, a woodpecker has zygodactyl (an impressive term) feet-two toes in front, two behind. Other birds have three toes in front and one behind: this works best for perching upright on horizontal branches or hopping on the ground. Clinging to the bark of a tree is best done with short legs which the woodpecker has; these are equipped with elongated, zygodactyl toes and sharp claws.
Tail feathers are long, stiff and strong; woodpeckers use them to prop themselves against a tree trunk in an upright position. This may be the most unusual aspect of woodpecker adaptation unless one wants to consider the thick-walled skull and straight, sharp-pointed bill as more remarkable. Strong muscles and a thick skull absorb the shock of hard pounding on wood.
A woodpecker's tongue is coiled around the skull and can be extended to astonishing lengths for probing for insects deep inside a tree limb or trunk. This tongue is equipped with bristles or barbs at its tip for piercing the larva of a wood boring beetle.
One species, the Flicker, feeds on the ground and con
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