Great Spotted Woodpecker or Nuthatch?

These two get mixed up constantly. Here is what actually separates them, taken from each bird's own page.

Great Spotted Woodpecker

Dendrocopos major

A nuthatch also works tree trunks and comes to feeders, but it is blue-grey above and orange-buff below with a black eye-stripe, and it is the only garden bird that walks head-first down a trunk. A great spotted woodpecker only ever goes up.

Nuthatch

Sitta europaea

A woodpecker is black and white with bold white shoulder patches and a red vent, and props itself upright on its stiff tail. A nuthatch is plain blue-grey above with no black-and-white pattern at all, and holds itself horizontally or head-down against the trunk with no tail support.

Side by side

	Great Spotted Woodpecker	Nuthatch
Size	About blackbird-sized, roughly 23cm, but broader-shouldered and heavier-looking.	About the same length as a robin but stockier and shorter-tailed — roughly great tit sized, with a woodpecker's outline.
Where you'll see it	On tree trunks and large branches, and clinging to peanut or suet feeders, usually briefly.	On the trunks and thick limbs of mature trees, and on peanut and sunflower feeders hung near them.
What it eats	Wood-boring insect larvae, tree seeds, and — in the breeding season — the eggs and nestlings of hole-nesting birds.	Insects and spiders prised from bark in summer; hazelnuts, acorns, beech mast, sunflower hearts and peanuts from autumn onward.
When	Resident all year; drumming from January to May and boldest at feeders in winter.	Resident all year, but far more likely in a garden between October and March when woodland food runs short.
Status	Green listed	Green listed

Still not sure? Describe what you saw and we will rank every garden bird against it — including these two.

Both descriptions are taken from the species pages, which cite the BTO and RSPB. Reviewed 2026-09-20.