The White-backed Woodpecker searches for food in forests with dead trees. It has black-and-white bars across its back and is often solitary outside the breeding season.
The back has black-and-white bars, and the flanks have a row of dark streaks.
The white-backed woodpecker uses old deciduous forests, deadwood, and trees with dead branches. Researchers compared 30 occupied and 30 unoccupied sites in western Austria, eastern Switzerland, and Liechtenstein. Occurrence was more likely where lying deadwood and trees with dead branches were more abundant. The surrounding landscape explained 2.
5 times more variation in occurrence probability than local habitat alone. The analysis also linked occurrence with old deciduous forest, coniferous forest, and young deciduous forest at landscape scales of 20 to 64 square kilometres. The results show that the bird’s habitat extends beyond a single forest patch.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
Occurrence was linked to deadwood, old deciduous forest, and the wider forest landscape. Retaining deadwood and maintaining extensive forest landscapes are key conservation measures identified by the study.