Eurasian Wryneck

The Eurasian wryneck is a woodpecker-family bird 16–18 cm long with a bill shorter and less dagger-like than other woodpeckers'. The upperparts are barred and mottled in pale brown with rufous and blackish bars and wider black streaks, the underparts cream speckled and spotted with brown, and the cheeks and throat buff barred brown. When disturbed at the nest it twists its head and hisses like a snake as a threat display (Wikipedia, general species account).

It mainly breeds in temperate Europe and Asia and most populations are migratory, wintering in tropical Africa and in southern Asia from Iran to the Indian subcontinent; one paler subspecies breeds in a wide strip of Asia including the north-western Himalaya. Its chief prey is ants and other insects found in decaying wood or on the ground. Seven to ten white eggs are laid in a hole in May and June. The call is a series of repeated harsh, shrill notes, quee-quee-quee-quee. SoIB 2023 rates it a Low conservation priority, a winter migrant and localised summer migrant of open habitat with a Large range (Wikipedia, general species account; SoIB 2023).