This month Chris looks at the great spotted woodpecker
Bird Scene O
nce again thank you for your waxwing sightings – this has
been the best winter for them in living memory. It was interesting that many birds ended up on the south coast, the only place where it was sometimes a little above freezing during that bitter December. Sadly waxwings are prone to flying
into windows, conservatories, even bus shelters, and there have been reports of several deaths caused in this way. It seems to be something to do with their habit of swooping low excitedly out of the trees they are feeding on. However, like most bird artists, I never miss the opportunity to draw dead birds when I find them – there simply no better way to discover exactly how they are made – so if by any chance someone finds a deceased waxwing I’d love to see it! Please email me at
chris@pendleton.co.uk. This month’s bird, the great
spotted woodpecker also seems to be doing very well. They are visiting garden bird feeders more often and there has been a genuine increase in their numbers over the past few decades. I’ve chosen the GSW (as I will now call it for brevity) for March because it is about now that you begin to hear their extraordinary drumming resonating through our woods and copses. They make this unmistakable sound by rapidly pecking in multiple bursts onto a dead branch which they’ve carefully selected to make the loudest note. Both our other woodpeckers also drum, but the
green does so very infrequently and the lesser spotted is now quite rare, so if you hear it the chances are it’ll be a GSW.
It’s a commonplace that we don’t
have many really exotic looking birds in Britain but the GSW, with its beautiful pied plumage, is definitely one that is. On the face of it this would appear to be an appalling camouflage scheme for a bird that must be a prime target for woodland hunters like sparrowhawks, but when high in a tree against a background of sky broken by twigs and branches, it works as a classic dazzle pattern and they are often all but invisible. The male has the red back to his head but both sexes share red under parts. Great spotteds are terrors
for drilling into anything wooden that might hold food for them or where they might consider nesting, and there have been several reports of them damaging shingles on wood-clad church spires. They’re often accused of attacking bee hives to get at the larvae too but I reckon green woodpeckers are more often the culprits here. GSW’s always give an impression of power and aggression and they are predatory birds, and quite a few bird lovers have been
distressed find them ruthlessly trashing a nest box and eating their baby bluetits. So get out there and listen for that drumming this spring – it’s a wonderful primeval sound that talks of wild untamed forests and the promise of spring.
n
With Chris Pendleton
• Great Spotted Woodpecker from the British Birds Collection of limited edition prints. £24.95 from www.
pendleton.co.ukʼ
March 2011 31
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