[{"id": 49924, "created": "2015-04-07T09:14:26.018145", "project_id": 128, "task_id": 29255, "user_id": 877, "user_ip": null, "finish_time": "2015-04-07T09:14:26.018172", "timeout": null, "calibration": null, "external_uid": null, "media_url": null, "info": {"other": "", "translation": "                                         About the Carpenter in the Wood\r\n\r\n                                                  a little zoological chat\r\n\r\n[;] Do you know him, the drummer and banger in the wood?  How often has his sudden chuckle startled you in the quiet of the forest when you were innocently looking for berries and mushrooms.  He may have craftily peeped round a tree trunk as if in a teasing hide-and-seek game - and then immediately he was gone again.  That is the woodpecker, the 'carpenter' of the forest.\r\n\r\n[;] The whole wood is his work shop, the whole day he is diligent, here and there, always busy.  His axe is his hard, square beak, the shaft his short, strong neck.  With this tool he knocks and chips the tree bark,  splicing with quick blows the wood of the old trunk itself to get to the insects.  His peculiar tongue is of help as well.  Long, supple and sticky it enables him to probe deep into the decaying wood or to penetrate the 'worm-holes' extracting the damaging pests.  While small creatures are stuck to the sticky tongue, bigger ones are speared by the hard horny tip of the tongue, which is also equipped with hooks.  Remarkable are also his feet which make him such a splendid climber.  Two toes face forwards, two backwards, possessing sharp, bent claws with which he can hook himself into the bark.  While he is thus clinging with his climbing feet he is also supporting himself with his tail and is sitting as comfortable as if on a tripod.  The experienced woodpecker realises quickly whether beetles are to be found inside a tree because of the hollow, dull sound when  the tree is pecked.\r\n\r\n[;] After a hard day's work he sleeps deeply and well in his well made sleeping hole which he prepared in an old tree, well above the ground.  For his young he has made an especially comfortable home.  At first he made a small entrance just big enough that he can get through; then it womewhat slopes upwards  so that no rain can get in.  The home proper leads a little way down the trunk is polstered with small, soft wood chips at the bottom.  There the young ones feel safe and comfortable.\r\n\r\n[;] Yes, he is a clever fellow.  The woodpecker's loud knocking that we like so much, frightens worms and insects inside tree trunks and in their panic they try to escape at the other side of the trunk.  The wood pecker knows that as well and that's why he knocked.  Quickly he has slipped to the other side of the trunk, waiting there for the escapees - which confoundedly creep out and - run to their death.\r\n\r\n[;] As a skilled craftsman he knows how to make use of everything and to improvise when necessary.  Here a little example: you have perhaps already seen the little gall-nuts on oak leaves, these little brown balls, as big  as our 'Taz-balls.'* Inside them lives the larva of the gall wasp.  As he cannot manage these leaves which wobble each time his beak hits them, the carpenter simply tears the gall-nuts off and secures them in a hole or a little gap in the trunk.   Now he can easily crack them open and the grub is his.  Seeds and nuts he tackles the same way in his 'wood-pecker-forges', and when he does not find a suitable gap for a forge, he quickly creates one.\r\n\r\n[;] The largest among the wood peckers is the black wood pecker.  He is shy, simply black with a bright red head and lives quiety in the higher coniferous forests.\r\n\r\n[;] Where between small woods are also meadows and fields lives the green woodpecker.  He's a handsome fellow with green feathers and a red cap and because of his loud, neighing call is also named 'neighing wood pecker'.  In contrast to his brothers he also likes to stay on the ground to look  for ants which he can catch easily with his sticky tongue.\r\n\r\n* Tazkugeln -  the expression is unknown to me and not in the dictionary either.  \r\n                                                                   2\r\n[;] The prettiest of the feathered carpenters is the greater spotted woodpecker.  He often visits our orchards and his sharp eyes miss not the tiniest insect.  His closest relatives, the middle-sized and the small spotted woodpecker are rarer than their big uncle and the small spotted woodpecker does not like to be in the darker coniferous wood.", "transcription": "na"}}]