Birds
Wryneck
Jynx torquilla · also called Eurasian wryneck, snake-bird
The wryneck is a woodpecker that got out of the woodpecker business. It does not hammer, drum, or dig; it hops around on the ground eating ants, it is camouflaged like a dead leaf, and when something corners it, it does an unnervingly good impression of a snake.
Overview
Jynx torquilla is a true woodpecker that has lost the family’s chisel bill and cannot cut into wood. It feeds on the ground, almost entirely on ants, which it licks up with a long sticky tongue, and it nests in existing tree holes. It breeds across Europe and Asia and winters in Africa or southern Asia.
The snake act
Threatened at the nest or in the hand, a wryneck slowly twists and weaves its neck, hisses, and narrows its eyes, doing a convincing impression of a small snake to make a predator flinch. Its name means “twisted neck.”
The jinx
The bird’s genus, Jynx, is the source of the English word jinx. In the ancient world the wryneck was bound to a spinning wheel and used in love charms, and the word for that spell passed into English as a term for a curse.
Status
Least Concern globally but declining across western Europe as ant-rich short grassland and old orchards disappear. It stopped breeding regularly in Britain by the 1980s, though migrants still pass through in autumn.
Wryneck: common questions
Is the wryneck actually a woodpecker?
Yes, it is a genuine member of the woodpecker family, Picidae, but it belongs to an early-branching group and has lost most of the classic woodpecker features. It does not have the reinforced skull, stiff tail, and powerful chisel bill used for hammering into wood, and it cannot drum or excavate. What it keeps from its woodpecker ancestry is the long, extensible, sticky tongue for extracting ants, two toes pointing forward and two back for gripping, and the habit of nesting in tree cavities. It just uses holes that already exist, sometimes evicting the previous owner's eggs.
Why does the wryneck pretend to be a snake?
It is a defence for a small, weak bird that nests in a hole it cannot defend by force. When a wryneck is threatened at close range, especially at the nest or when handled, it slowly cranes and twists its neck from side to side in a snaking, boneless motion, opens its bill, hisses, and stares with narrowed eyes. To a predator peering into a dark nest cavity, or a hand reaching in, the sudden appearance of what looks and sounds like a coiling snake is enough to trigger a recoil, giving the bird or its chicks a moment to escape or simply making the intruder give up.
How is the wryneck connected to the word jinx?
The bird's genus name is Jynx, from the Greek name for the wryneck, and in the ancient world the wryneck was used in magic. It was tied spread-eagled to a small wheel that was spun while incantations were recited, as a love charm meant to draw a desired person back, and the device and the practice were also called a jynx. Over time the word came into English, by way of this association with spells and binding, as jinx, meaning a curse or a run of bad luck attached to a person or thing. The bird's own eerie writhing display no doubt helped the reputation along.
Where can you still see a wryneck?
In much of continental Europe and across temperate Asia it remains a fairly common breeding bird of orchards, vineyards, open pine and oak woodland, and rough grassland with anthills, though it is declining in the west. In Britain it no longer breeds reliably, but small numbers of migrants turn up every autumn, mainly along the east and south coasts, feeding quietly on the ground in coastal scrub and gardens, and these passage birds are the ones most British birdwatchers see. It is easy to overlook because of its dead-leaf camouflage and its habit of feeding on the ground.