The Great spotted woodpecker is the most common woodpecker species in Finland. It is medium-sized black and white woodpecker with a scarlet color on its neck, lower belly and undertail.

The great spotted woodpecker adapts to live in a wide variety of forests from wilderness to urban parks. The species is found in Eurasia, North Africa and Canary Islands. The great spotted woodpeckers are usually resident birds but in years when there are few cones they may migrate in the search of food on the other side of the Baltic Sea. The great spotted woodpecker nests usually in a self-made nest hole and the holes made by them are good nesting places also for many other hole-nesting species. In winter the great spotted woodpecker chooses one tree or wooden pole where it brings all the cones to get the seeds out of them and the surroundings of such a tree can be littered with hundreds of opened cones.

During the winter the great spotted woodpecker is dependent on the seeds of the coniferous trees.