I really love green woodpeckers; they are so easy to miss due to their colouring. It seems that they get forgotten everywhere too. Everyone knows Romulus and Remus were raised by wolves, how many remember the woodpecker?
According to the Roman legend, Romulus was the founder of Rome and Remus was his twin brother. Their story begins with their grandfather Numitor, king of the ancient Italian city of Alba Longa, was deposed by his brother Amulius. Numitor's daughter, Rhea Silvia, was made a Vestal Virgin by Amulius - this means that she was made a priestess of the goddess Vesta and forbidden to marry. Nevertheless, Mars, the god of war, fell in love with her and she gave birth to his twin sons.

Amulius, fearing that the boys would grow up to overthrow him, had them placed in a basket and thrown into the River Tiber. The river god Tiberinus kept the boys safe even though the river was in flood, and when the waters fell, he caused the basket still containing the two boys to be caught in the roots of a fig tree that was growing in the Velabrum swamp. There they were found by a she-wolf who, instead of killing them, looked after them and fed them with her milk. A woodpecker also brought them food, for the woodpecker, like the wolf, was sacred to Mars. Everyone remembers the wolves sadly very few people remember the part of the woodpecker.