Woodpeckers add welcome splash of colour

10:34am Monday 19th November 2007

WINTER is now truly with us, and a lot of our wildlife has taken drastic measures to escape from the chill. The majority of adult insects have died away leaving the hopes of future generations to dormant eggs or pupa hidden away in the soil, crevasses under bark or in rotting wood.

Some will have joined many of our smaller vertebrates like reptiles, amphibians and small mammals and entered into hibernation. Our more mobile animals like the birds and some of our larger insects will have taken to the skies and migrated to warmer conditions. However there are still a few hardy animals that are prepared to ride out the bleakness of winter. Some of these are our larger mammals, including badgers, foxes and deer but this hardy bunch also includes one of our smallest birds, the wren, who also chooses to eke out a living from the bleak winter landscape.

This reduction in the numbers of animals living in our countryside combined with the loss of leaves from the deciduous trees seems to make what animals do remain stand out much more in the landscape.

This is certainly the case for one of our showiest of birds, the green woodpecker, that at just this time each year seems to take centre stage, particularly just as the morning mists start to lift.

The green woodpecker is the largest of our three native woodpecker species, and as its name suggests it is the only green one. Green birds are few and far between in England and this rather large bird makes itself even more spectacular by topping its plumage off with a scarlet red cap. This plumage is most vivid in males during the spring but a hint of it can be seen throughout the year. Woodpeckers get their name, from as you might guess pecking wood, and this is most true of the green pecker, the other two species - the greater spotted and lesser spotted - don't so much as peck but hammer their beaks into it like electric hammer action drills as they search for grubs buried beneath.

Even their mating call relies on finding a rather nice dead tree that will resonate well when they drill into it - a phenomenon we will have to wait for the heady days of spring to witness. The green woodpecker on the other hand is much less of a head banger than these two related species and whilst it does peck into wood to extract the odd grub it much prefers to find a meal by scouring around in mounds of meadow ant's nests in rough pasture, looking for insect food. It is when it is doing just this they seem to be most frequently encountered. It is quite remarkable just how well camouflaged their green can be amongst the ant hills and the green woodpecker is a most shy bird so you normally end up getting too close for its comfort before you spot it.

At this point it usually launches itself into a rapidly accelerating flight, frantically beating its wings. Once it is up to its extremely quick flight speed it folds back its wings and swoops through the air more like an arrow than a bird before putting in a another intense bust of wing beats in to pick a little more height before folding back its wings again for another swoop.

Such seemingly uncontrolled speed through a wood seems almost unbelievable but the woodpecker is a master of it. Sparrow hawks can swoop down at phenomenal speeds on their hapless victims but I often wonder if even these masters of speed could compete with the swooping flight of the woodpecker through a wood.

As well as their fascinating flight and spectacular colouration, the green woodpecker has one of the most distinctive of voices and its shrill laughter like call or yaffle can be heard frequently across the landscapes occupied by this bird.

So while it may be getting drabber out there, thanks to birds like the green woodpecker there is still a lot of colour, noise and excitement still to be found in the natural world.

EDITOR'S CHOICE