[...] I often hear the tap-tap-tapping of great spotted woodpeckers from high up in the trees as they test the dead boughs for tasty insect morsels
Going for walks in Dulwich and Sydenham Hill Woods, Peckham Rye or Nunhead Cemetery, I often hear the tap-tap-tapping of great spotted woodpeckers from high up in the trees as they test the dead boughs for tasty insect morsels. We have no large trees in our garden, but a few days ago I was convinced I could hear one in the gardens a few doors down, which have sycamores, limes and Lombardy poplars.
But no matter how hard I listened, I could not pinpoint exactly where the sound was coming from, and could not make out the distinctive shape of this pretty bird. Of course they are renowned for playing hide-and-seek with observers, hopping round to the other side of the trunk if they see they are being watched.
Some years ago I was able to see one very closely in the small back garden of our previous house in Nunhead. I was on the telephone looking out through the back bedroom window when one landed on the washing line pole. It made a few tentative taps with its beak, then hopped up the pole a few inches to try again. It gradually worked all the way up the pole to the turned wooden acorn on the top, before deciding there was nothing of value and flying off.
I was fascinated to see such a decorative bird so closely, but was more intrigued by its rather daft behaviour. The washing line was strung from a pulley screwed into that wooden acorn top, but the post itself was an old rusty metal scaffold pole. No wood-boring bugs in there. What was the bird thinking of?
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