Great Spotted Woodpecker

Our garden often has Great Spotted Woodpeckers in and around it. They sometimes come to the peanut feeder but are often seen on the telegraph pole at the bottom of our garden.

They have a distinctive call and flight pattern which is up and down.

This one has been busy over the last two days, spending a lot of time on this post

Woodpecker on post

This particular woodpecker is a male, he has a red patch on the back of his head. He has been bringing food in his mouth and putting it in one of the holes on the post. I have read that they sometimes put food in to cracks in wood to make it easier to open the seeds or nuts and eat.

View of back of head

While he was busy another woodpecker turned up on the other side, which looks like a female. He didn’t realise at first until she started to peck the wood then he hopped round and pecked her a few times in the chest. The female fell off the post flapping back on to the post near the bottom, she walked back up but when approached by the male again she flew away heading back to the conifer tree a couple of houses away where she brought up her young this year.

Two Great spotted woodpeckers

The male then went back to his pecking.

GSW Back to work