Middle Spotted Woodpecker: distribution and range

Global range lies mostly within the Western Palearctic. Easternmost populations are found in Iran. Locally common in the right habitat from France eastwards to European Russia, mainly in the temperate continental zone but also north to the Baltic, but absent from Finland and Norway and extinct in Sweden, and extending southwards into the Mediterranean Basin and the Balkans. A warm continental Mediterranean-like microclimate seems to be essential. Middle Spotted Woodpecker was probably never very common in the boreal zone from which it has subsequently retreated. Though common on the Greek mainland the only island occupied is Lesvos, which is of course close to the Turkish coast and populations there. Absent from Iceland, Ireland and Britain and Fenno-Scandia. Across its range Middle Spotted shows varying and often quite low population densities. It is now extinct in Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands. But has a much more continuous distribution in the east, ranging Germany eastwards to Russia and from the Baltic States southwards to the Balkans. Indeed, today the European distribution of this species is divided into two. It is very fragmented the west being found in several isolated populations such as those in Spain and Italy. Such populations have become dangerously isolated from the core population in the east. This situation has arisen mainly because of habitat lost, in particular the felling of mature oak woodland.