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Middle Spotted Woodpeckers have an almost all black and white back. From the nape of the neck down everything is black, except for big white wing panels and bands of whie spots on the wings. Apart from black moustachial stripes (which do not reach the base of the bill), the sides of the head, chin and chest are off-white to light-grey. The base colour of the belly is also light-grey, whereas the flanks have a yellowish to buff tinge. Both belly and flanks have dark streaks. The vent and undertail coverts are pale-pink. Male Middle Spotted Woodpeckers have a buff frons and a bright-red cap. Females are almost identical with males; however, their cap is a duller shade of red and does not extend as far back onto the nape of the neck. The irises of both sexes are brown. The straight, short and weak bill is grey, with a darker tip. Legs and feet are grey. Like all treecreepers and woodpeckers they have long toes, with two pointing forward and two backward.

The overall distribution of this species can be assessed, and specific locations where birds have been spotted can be found, based on individual sighting reports submitted by birdwatchers to ebird.org .

The global distribution of the Middle Spotted Woodpecker is available HERE .

Middle Spotted Woodpeckers are sedentary throughout their range. Their total range extends from central France in the West to south-western Asia (the Caucasus mountain range, north-western Iran) in the East.

In Europe Middle Spotted Woodpeckers of nominate race "medius" populate parts of central France, while further eastward they are found in an area ranging from northward of the Danube River to southward of the Baltic coastline, as far East as the Baltic states. They also populate much of south-eastern Europe, from the Balkans to much of Greece, towards the Black Sea and into mid-latitude European Russia. They are found in the Pyrenees, but only in small areas along the northern Iberian coastal fringe and in small spots in southern Italy. Otherwise they are absent from the western Mediterranean. They are not found on the British Isles or in Scandinavia either.

Middle Spotted Woodpeckers have a preference for deciduous forest and woodland, often along fringes or clearings.

Race "medius"