The palace and park ensemble of Peterhof was founded by Peter I in 1705 on the southern shore of the Gulf of Finland.
The Grand Palace is the main building of the palace and park ensemble. The construction of the palace began in 1714 and ended in 1755. The author of the project is Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli. The main architectural style is Elizabethan Baroque.
The view of the facade of the Grand Palace from the Upper or Lower Park is impressive, but we must admit that the palace itself is quite narrow and is not as big as it looks. The palace is a three-storey building of almost three hundred meters in length.
Anyone who hears the word “Peterhof” immediately associates it with fountains. These fountains are located in the Lower and Higher Parks of the palace and park ensemble of Peterhof. Experts say that the scale of the fountains of Peterhof exceed the scale of the fountains of the French Versailles. The Lower Park complex has more than 150 fountains and 4 cascades, and in the Upper Garden fountains there are only 5 fountains and one cascade.
The most famous fountains are “The Grand Cascade” and “Samson Fountain”.
Species of woodpeckers in the nature of a great many more than two hundred and twenty. These include great spotted, black, white, green, White-billed, crested black woodpecker, chestnut, field gold, ruby, Cockade, earth, acorn woodpeckers and others.
Woodpecker - Bird clever. Knocking on wood, he locates the sound of insects and carefully removes them from under the bark. Wood insects, larvae, ants - favorite prey of this bird. In woodpecker is very long (for the birds) language. Why this need him? Woodpecker's not a chatterbox! The language of every corner, he pulls out the insects that bring harm to the tree. It is no wonder it is called the "doctor of the forest."
In April woodpecker opted for any (often slightly bend the) tree and begins to "deal with the construction" - hollowing a nest. Tapping it can tirelessly for several hours a day. But, as the saying goes, "do not have a headache at the woodpecker". The resulting slot has such dimensions: depth - about forty centimeters, a diameter of about twenty. Hollowed-laborer woodpecker hollows, later becoming a haven of other birds.
Great spotted woodpecker - a real handsome. Like a true dandy, in his robe dominates the black-and-white palette, there are red and green tones. The green woodpecker feathers dominated the color green, only the head and the corners of the beak - deep red.
Black Woodpecker - by definition predominantly black. On his head - red forage cap.
"Woodpecker throws her head back and with astonishing speed starts hitting - banging its beak on a tree: tr-rr-rr! - Far resounds loud crack, like a prolonged dry wood creaking. I look at Winged Drummer, look and wonder: his head so quickly teeter back and forth, I was even afraid - as if she had not pulled away from the neck. But woodpecker, apparently, could not care less. He pours one shot after another. That's really true, a natural actor! "