Eurasian wryneck
Jynx torquilla
A small, cryptically barred woodpecker that feeds on ants on the ground. Confirmed in Georgia as a breeding bird and passage migrant on the 2024 national bird checklist. Named photographs on this page include Borjomi-Kharagauli National Park, 16 July 2015, and the Chorokhi Delta, 15 September 2014.
Overview
What is Eurasian wryneck
The Eurasian wryneck (Jynx torquilla) is a small woodpecker (family Picidae) confirmed in Georgia as a breeding migrant. The 2024 annotated checklist of the birds of Georgia codes it BB; M: a breeder that is absent in the non-breeding season, and also a bird of passage. Seasonality is classed as high-quality (code A). Occurrence quality is high (H), with photographs and ringing data. Adults are about 16–18 cm long at species level. It is not a threat to people. IUCN lists the species as Least Concern. The 2024 checklist assigns the same category nationally.
Last updated
Gallery
Eurasian wryneck in photos
Photo: ზაური ხაჩიძე
Borjomi-Kharagauli National Park ·
Photo: ზაური ხაჩიძე
Borjomi-Kharagauli National Park ·
Photo: ზაური ხაჩიძე
Borjomi-Kharagauli National Park ·
Photo: ზაური ხაჩიძე
Borjomi-Kharagauli National Park ·
Photo: Pepe Reigada
Córdoba ·
Photo: Pierre Dalous
Ariège ·
Photo: Wouter van der Ham
Chorokhi Delta ·
Photo: Donald Hobern
Copenhagen ·
Photo: Prasan Shrestha
Bhaktapur ·
Photo: Arnstein Rønning
Ramsøy ·
Identification
How to identify Eurasian wryneck
A sparrow-sized, bark-coloured woodpecker with a dark stripe down the nape and back, a short bill, and a rounded tail. In Georgia it is a breeding migrant on the 2024 checklist. It does not look like the green or pied woodpeckers.
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Length about 16–18 cm at species level. NPLG gives wing 80–95 mm, tail 60–75 mm, bill 15–16 mm, and mass 30–45 g. Wingspan is often given around 25–30 cm. The bill is short and pointed, not a woodpecker chisel. The tail is rounded and relatively soft, not a stiff prop. Upperparts are grey-brown, mottled and barred like bark, with a darker band from the nape onto the back. The throat is buff with fine bars; the underparts are pale with small arrow-shaped marks. Legs and bill are brown. Sexes are alike in the field; NPLG notes the male as only slightly larger.
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Juveniles are similar to adults, with slightly duller contrast. Flight is undulating. It often feeds on the ground and may cling to trunks, but it does not hitch up trees the way spotted woodpeckers do. The call is a carrying series of nasal notes; this page does not treat call as a standalone identification against lesser spotted woodpecker without a view of the bird.
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European green woodpecker (Picus viridis) is a year-round resident in Georgia on the 2024 checklist: much larger, olive-green, with a red crown. This atlas has a page for that species. Grey-headed woodpecker (Picus canus) is also a resident: grey-headed, green-backed, not bark-brown. Black woodpecker (Dryocopus martius) is large and black. Great spotted, Syrian, middle spotted, white-backed, and lesser spotted woodpeckers are pied black, white, and red. Eurasian nightjar is cryptically mottled but is nocturnal, has long wings and a tiny bill, and is not a woodpecker. This atlas does not yet have separate pages for those other species.
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It is not a threat to people. Leave it alone. A small brown barred bird on ant-rich ground at a Georgian woodland edge in summer is more likely this species than a green woodpecker.
Biology
Habitat, diet, behavior, and conservation
Habitat and range
In Georgia look for it in the breeding season and on spring and autumn passage, not in winter on the 2024 checklist. Named records on this page: Borjomi-Kharagauli National Park, 16 July 2015 (photographs by ზაური ხაჩიძე), in the breeding season; and Chorokhi Delta (southern ponds and wetlands), 15 September 2014 (photograph by Wouter van der Ham), on autumn passage. The July photographs show presence in woodland in the park; they are not a nest record. The 2024 checklist confirms country-level breeding-migrant status but does not publish a regional gazetteer. Do not assume it occurs evenly across Georgia, including treeless high plateaus or closed high-elevation forest. Species-level habitat is semi-open country: woodland edge, orchards, parks, river valleys, and similar places with scattered trees and short ground vegetation where ants nest. A separate national elevation band for Georgia is not published here. The 2022 woodpecker monitoring report for Borjomi-Kharagauli and Pshav-Khevsureti did not list this species among the woodpeckers counted there.
Diet
There is no separate Georgian diet study on this page. Across the range the main food is ants, especially larvae and pupae, taken on the ground with a long sticky tongue. Other small invertebrates are taken. Unlike most woodpeckers, daily feeding is not trunk-drilling for wood-boring larvae. In the field, a small barred brown bird hopping on ant-rich ground at a woodland edge is behaving typically.
Behavior
It is active by day. The song is a series of loud, nasal notes, often written as “quee-quee-quee”, lasting several seconds; it can recall a small falcon or lesser spotted woodpecker. Drumming on wood is not the usual cue. When threatened, especially at a nest hole, it may twist the neck in a snake-like display and hiss; that habit is the source of the English name wryneck. It does not usually excavate its own nest. It uses an existing cavity in a tree, a nest box, or another hole, and lays white eggs. Species-level clutches are often about seven to ten eggs, with incubation of about 12–14 days and young in the nest for about 18–22 days; those figures are from the wider range, not a Georgian nest sample on this page. The 2024 checklist treats the species as a breeder in Georgia and as a migrant. Most Palearctic populations leave the breeding range in autumn; western birds winter mainly in Africa, eastern birds in southern Asia. The checklist does not code it as a winter visitor (WV) in Georgia.
Conservation
BirdLife International assesses Jynx torquilla as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List. The global range is large; parts of western Europe have declined sharply, and the species is no longer a regular UK breeder, but the global decline is not treated as fast enough for a higher threat category. EUNIS reports Least Concern in Europe, an EU population status of depleted, and coverage under the EU Birds Directive (code A233); that instrument does not apply in Georgia. It is not on Georgia’s 2014 Red List (Government Resolution No. 190). The 2024 Georgian bird checklist assigns global and national Red List category LC. A Georgia-specific population trend is not quantified on this page. Do not catch or keep wild birds. Loss of old trees with cavities and of ant-rich grassland would be the biologically relevant pressures at species level; local threat ranking for Georgia is not published here.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
Short answers to the most important questions about Eurasian wryneck.
Yes. The 2024 annotated checklist of the birds of Georgia lists it as a confirmed breeding bird and migrant (BB; M), with photographs and ringing data.
In the warmer months, in open woodland, orchards, and edges with ants on the ground, and on spring and autumn passage. Named photographs on this page are from Borjomi-Kharagauli National Park on 16 July 2015 and from the Chorokhi Delta on 15 September 2014. This page does not map every region.
Sparrow-sized, bark-brown and barred, with a dark stripe down the nape and back and a short bill. It often feeds on the ground. Green and pied woodpeckers in Georgia look very different. The song is a nasal “quee-quee-quee” series.
About 16–18 cm long at species level. NPLG gives mass as 30–45 g. A separate measured series from Georgia is not given on this page.
Mainly ants, taken on the ground. Diet has not been studied separately in Georgia on this page.
In the breeding season and on passage, according to the 2024 checklist (BB; M). It is not treated there as a winter visitor. Exact arrival and departure dates for Georgia are not tabulated on this page. The photographs here are from 16 July and 15 September.
Yes. BB on the 2024 checklist means it is a confirmed breeder. It usually uses an existing hole rather than excavating a new one. Local nest records are not compiled on this page.
It is harmless. It is globally Least Concern and is coded LC nationally on the 2024 checklist. It is not on Georgia’s 2014 Red List. Do not catch wild birds.
- Budagashvili & Javakhishvili 2024 — The birds of Georgia (Sandgrouse 46)
- Javakhishvili, Melikishvili & Metreveli 2022 — Woodpecker monitoring in Borjomi-Kharagauli and Pshav-Khevsureti
- BirdLife DataZone — Eurasian Wryneck
- IUCN Red List — Jynx torquilla
- EUNIS — Jynx torquilla
- IOC World Bird List
- Avibase — Georgia bird checklist
- NPLG Wiki Dictionaries — მაქცია
- საქართველოს მთავრობის დადგენილება №190 (2014) — წითელი ნუსხა
- RSPB — Wryneck
- eBird — Eurasian Wryneck
- Winkler, Christie, Kirwan & Perlman 2025 — Birds of the World (Jynx torquilla)
- Wikimedia Commons — Córdoba (Pepe Reigada, CC0)
- Wikimedia Commons — Ariège (Pierre Dalous, CC BY-SA 3.0)
- Wikimedia Commons — Chorokhi Delta, Georgia (Wouter van der Ham, CC BY 3.0)
- Wikimedia Commons — Copenhagen (Donald Hobern, CC BY 2.0)
- Wikimedia Commons — Bhaktapur (Prasan Shrestha, CC BY-SA 4.0)
- Wikimedia Commons — Ramsøy (Arnstein Rønning, CC BY-SA 3.0)
- Wikimedia Commons — XC561861 song (Kim Erlend Vidal, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Species profiles are compiled from peer-reviewed literature and established biodiversity databases, and are reviewed as new taxonomic and conservation data become available.
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