Territory quality and feather growth in the White-backed Woodpecker Dendrocopos leucotos

During the last decades the White-backed Woodpecker has shown a precipitous decline in many regions of the western Palearctic, In this study I ask whether detoriation of the forest breeding habitat might have contributed to this population decline and contraction of the species' range. By using the technique of ptilochronology it is shown that the bird's condition reflects the quality of the breeding territory as estimated by the density of dead and deciduous stems. Feather growth bars were wider on old museum specimens, suggesting that birds living 55-150 years ago experienced a forest landscape of better quality than birds do today.