Middle Spotted Woodpecker

Middle Spotted Woodpecker

Dendrocoptes medius

Silhouette: Олена Гнезділова · PhyloPic

Daily sighting probability ~20% · Possible
at Nizhny Novgorod

In 3 days ~50% in a week ~80%

107 Verified sightings at Nizhny Novgorod
1,055 In all 10 parks From 2019 to 2026
March Best month
☀️ Diurnal When it's spotted

About the Middle Spotted Woodpecker

The middle spotted woodpecker (Dendrocoptes medius) is a mainly European woodpecker belonging to the genus Dendrocoptes. The middle spotted woodpecker was formally described by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in 1758 in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae under the binomial name Picus medius. The specific epithet is Latin for "intermediate". Linnaeus gave the locality as Europe, but this is now taken to be Sweden. For many years this woodpecker was usually placed in the genus Dendrocopos but a 2015 molecular phylogenetic study that compared nuclear and mitochondrial DNA sequences from pied woodpeckers found that Dendrocopos was polyphyletic. As part of the reorganisation to create monophyletic genera, the middle spotted woodpecker was one of three species that were placed in the resurrected genus Dendrocoptes. This genus had been described by the German ornithologists Jean Cabanis and Ferdinand Heine in 1863 with the middle spotted woodpecker as the type species.

Four subspecies are recognised: Dendrocoptes medius medius (Linnaeus, 1758) – Europe to west Russia Dendrocoptes medius caucasicus Bianchi, 1905 – north Turkey through the Caucasus Dendrocoptes medius... Wikipedia →

Sounds

Call0:24

France · 2026

© SWIFT Olivier · XC1156415 · CC BY-NC 4.0

Alarm call1:11

Poland · 2026

© Leconte Michel · XC1151195 · CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Song0:11

France · 2026

© Olivier SWIFT · XC1082844 · CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Global Distribution

Parks Where Found

# Park Country Daily sighting probability
1 Białowieża National Park 🇵🇱 Poland
~40%
2 Plitvice Lakes National Park 🇭🇷 Croatia
~20%
3 Picos de Europa National Park 🇪🇸 Spain
~10%
4 Biebrza National Park 🇵🇱 Poland
~10%
5 Fertő-Hanság National Park 🇭🇺 Hungary
~10%
6 Gauja National Park 🇱🇻 Latvia
~10%
7 Pyrénées National Park 🇫🇷 France
<5%
8 Tatra National Park 🇸🇰 Slovakia
<5%
9 Bavarian Forest National Park 🇩🇪 Germany
<5%
10 Kiskunság National Park 🇭🇺 Hungary
<5%

Cities Where Found

# City Country Daily sighting probability
1 Nizhny Novgorod 🇷🇺 Russia
~20%
2 Kyiv 🇺🇦 Ukraine
~20%
3 Vienna 🇦🇹 Austria
~10%
4 Moscow 🇷🇺 Russia
~10%
5 Bucharest 🇷🇴 Romania
~10%
6 Warsaw 🇵🇱 Poland
~10%
7 Minsk 🇧🇾 Belarus
~10%
8 Kharkiv 🇺🇦 Ukraine
~10%
9 Belgrade 🇷🇸 Serbia
~10%
10 Budapest 🇭🇺 Hungary
~10%

Before you go

What are the chances of seeing a Middle Spotted Woodpecker in Nizhny Novgorod?

Possible

About 20% of wildlife watchers report a Middle Spotted Woodpecker sighting in Nizhny Novgorod on a given day, based on 107 verified sightings from GBIF citizen-science data. It is the 27th most-seen of the 73 birds we can rate there. Over three days the chance rises to about 50%, and over a week to about 80%, if each day is a fresh chance.

When is the best time to see a Middle Spotted Woodpecker in Nizhny Novgorod?

March

In that month about 40% of wildlife watchers report a Middle Spotted Woodpecker in Nizhny Novgorod on a given day, against about 10% in April to August, the lowest months.

What time of day is best to see a Middle Spotted Woodpecker?

Between 8 and 11 am

Across all the parks we cover, that three-hour window holds the most Middle Spotted Woodpecker sightings with a recorded time, and about 8 in 10 of them come between 6 am and 6 pm: it is a daytime animal.

Is Nizhny Novgorod the best place to see a Middle Spotted Woodpecker?

Yes

Of the 19 cities where we can rate Middle Spotted Woodpecker sightings, Nizhny Novgorod has the highest daily chance: about 20%. Next come Kyiv (Ukraine, about 20%) and Vienna (Austria, about 10%).

Which relatives of the Middle Spotted Woodpecker live in Nizhny Novgorod?

Same family: Picidae

The closest relatives of the Middle Spotted Woodpecker that you can see in Nizhny Novgorod (family Picidae, Woodpeckers) are Great Spotted Woodpecker (about 40%), Black Woodpecker (about 10%) and Eurasian Wryneck (about 10%), with each one's daily chance of a sighting.

Where does the Middle Spotted Woodpecker sighting chance come from?

GBIF citizen-science records

It is estimated from how often the Middle Spotted Woodpecker is recorded against all the birds logged in Nizhny Novgorod (107 verified sightings), calibrated against known sighting rates. Figures are rounded to the nearest 10% because citizen-science data supports honest approximations, not decimals, and months with records from fewer than five people show "—". How it works.

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