Foraging Behavior Of Great Spotted Woodpecker In Patch Environment

Asian Longhorned Beetle (Anoplophora glabripennis) is one of the important forestry Boring Beetles, causing great harm to forestry production and ecological environment construction. Great spotted woodpecker(Dendrocopos major), as an insectivorous bird, is an important biological control agent of A. glabripennis and other forestry pests. In order to investigate the food utilization strategy of great spotted woodpecker and reveal the mechanism of the birds controlling forest pests using artificial-nest attraction technique, the great spotted woodpecker foraging behaviors were surveyed in wild and captive environment, and behaviors time budgets in captive environment respectively in the paper. The main results were described as follows:(1)The great spotted woodpeckers had always search the foraging trees one by one or by different interval in the farmland shelterbelt, the flying distance<5m was the most frequent locations, and the percentage was50.2%. The birds mainly had3foraging patterns:pecking was the main pattern, for89.0%, collecting was for6.9%, and drilling was for4.1%.(2)The results showed that there are significant differences in the birds’foraging times (F=6.376, df=11, P<0.01), residency time (F=5.980, df=11, P<0.01), successful foraging times (F=4.174,df=11, P<0.01) among different patches, but not in the successful foraging rate (F=2.091, df=11, P=0.168) in the wild foraging patches. Patch quality had positively correlated with foraging times, residency time, successful foraging times, but not with the successful foraging rate. Great spotted woodpeckers preferred to forage in high quality patches, while not only foraging for longer time in them, but also selecting the patches much more frequently; the successful foraging rate was not affected by patch quality.(3)The time budget of behaviors and activity rhythm of the captive great spotted woodpeckers were regular to some degree. The birds spent their time mainly in resting, flying and walking, and foraging, as for36.24%,26.96%,17.69%respectively. Excepted for foraging, preening and others, the differences in diurnal time budget of them between male and female were not obvious (P>0.05). The activity peak was revealed in the morning, and the behavioral rhythm was obvious in the daytime with a rest peak at midday. The occurrence frequency of flying and walking, preening, resting and jumping had no significant differences between sexes (P>0.05), but foraging frequency of male was higher than the female (P<0.05).(4)Great Spotted Woodpeckers preferred to forage in high quality patches, not only foraging for longer time in them, but also selecting the patches much more frequently in artificial foraging patche The food obtain rate in rich patch was lower than in poor patch, but the foraging quantity and tl foraging rate in rich patch were higher than in poor patch. When the food density increased, tl foraging quantity of great spotted woodpeckers in rich patch was higher than in poor patch. For po patch, the foraging quantity, foraging rate and foraging efficiency were decreasing.The research had showed that the great spotted woodpeckers prefer to forage in high quali patches not only foraging for longer time in them, but also selecting the patches much more frequent in both field patch and artificial patch. In the field, the bird the successful foraging rate was not affecte by patch quality that is probably a survival instinct of Great Spotted Woodpecker facing with differei feeding environments.