What they like?

Messy edges and quiet corners. Old fruit trees, pollarded willows, alders and birches with soft, dead wood. Ideally a garden, park or farmyard where you don’t tidy every twig “neatly.” In agricultural areas: hedgerows, shelterbelts and orchards that are allowed to age.

Ecological importance

He’s your free tree doctor. He picks larvae and insects out of rotting wood, keeping the cleanup going. His old nest cavities are later used by tit species and other cavity-nesters. A chain reaction — the good kind.

When in the Netherlands

Found year-round. Extra active in spring: drumming, calling, staking out territory.

Status

Breeding bird in the Netherlands. Locally present and dependent on old wood; disappears quickly if everything is pruned and tidied up too strictly.