The White-backed Woodpecker (Dendrocopos leucotos) is Sweden's most threatened woodpecker, somewhat larger and slimmer than the familiar Great Spotted Woodpecker at 24–26 cm long with a wingspan of about 38–40 cm. Its plumage is black and white, and the key field mark is the white, barred lower back that gives the species its name, clearly visible as the bird climbs a trunk; the flanks are finely dark-streaked and the undertail coverts show a pinkish-red tone. The male has a red crown, the female a black one. Its contact call is a soft, somewhat muted "kik," weaker than the Great Spotted Woodpecker's sharp note, while its drumming is unusually long and drawn out — around 1.5 to 2 seconds — and fades slightly toward the end.
It depends on old, moist, deciduous-rich forest full of dead and dying wood, preferably with aspen, birch and alder, where it excavates its nest cavity in a rotting tree, often an aspen; the female lays 3–5 eggs, both parents share incubation for around two weeks, and the young fledge after just under a month. Its food is mostly wood-boring beetle larvae and other insects chiselled out of rotten wood and loose bark, a diet that makes a large supply of dying and dead deciduous timber essential to its survival, with seeds and berries occasionally supplementing the diet in winter. Occurring transpalearctically from Norway to Kamchatka, the species in Sweden survives only as a very small, resident population concentrated in a few areas of central Sweden, chiefly Värmland, and is classified as Critically Endangered on the national Red List — a decline driven almost entirely by the loss of old, dead-wood-rich forest to modern forestry. Extensive conservation work, including habitat protection and the release of captive-bred birds, is underway to save it.
Read about this species in Swedish →