Male Great Spotted Woodpecker

Told apart from the female because of the red mark on the back of its neck.

Woody Woodpecker

There is a joy in watching these acrobatic birds trying their utmost to get a meal. The male (shown here with the red patch on the back of the neck, the female has an all-black crown and neck) and female have been coming to the peanut feeder, extracting pieces of peanut and then flying into the trees, presumably to feed their young.

These splendid birds will hopefully bring their young to feed once they fledge and I will be treated to red-crowned youngsters dangling from the feeders!

Great Spotted Woodpecker

Another year dawns and so with it I begin my yearly quest for a PBC list. I try and see as many species of bird within the Peterborough Bird Club recording area, last year I managed to get 175 species, seeing such beauties as Cattle Egret, Great (White) Egret, Waxwing and Green-winged Teal to name a few, although I missed out on Gannet and Raven. My record is 179, a total I got in 2009, so I would like to reach the heady hights of 180, who knows?

Below are a few shots of a Great Spotted Woodpecker. This is our most common woodpecker with between 25,000-30,000 breeding pairs, although it too has had hard times being all but non-existent in Scotland until 1887 when it re-colonised the country. In more recent times it has benefited from the dead wood resulting from Dutch Elm Disease.

It is similar in size to a Blackbird, with the male (shown here) having a red patch on the back of the head (the female has none and the juvenile has a red centre to its` crown). You may well hear it `drumming` soon, something it does in place of a song and it takes place in late winter and early spring. It is done by drumming its` bill on a branch and lasts for about 5 seconds and accelerates before fading away at the end.

Digiscoped using Lumix FS15 and Kowa TSN-883 x30