European green woodpecker but is made sticky by secretions from the enlarged salivary glands. Heavy, prolonged snow cover makes feeding difficult for the green woodpecker and can result in high mortality, from which it may take 10 years for the population to recover. Ant nests can be located under the snow; one bird was observed to dig 85 cm to reach a nest. 'Professor Yaffle', the wooden bookend character in the 1974 children's animation series "Bagpuss", was based loosely upon the green woodpecker. 'Yaffle' was among many English folk names for the European green woodpecker relating to its laughing call; others include laughing
Little green woodpecker its crown and nape. The juvenile bird has greener upperparts with pale streaks, and its underparts are paler. The little green woodpecker is found in West Africa, in Senegal, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast and Ghana. Its range would extend east to South Sudan, Uganda, Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo if "C. cailliautii permista" were included in this species. Its habitat is edges of primary and secondary forests, clearings, and mosaics of forest and shrub, at elevations up to . This woodpecker eats arboreal ants. Its calls are a plaintive "huweeeeh", a harsh "whee", "kewik",