This weekend is the RSPB’s Great Garden Birdwatch 2020 where every year people up and down the UK spend an hour noting down what birds visit their gardens. This year, my parents surveyed our back garden (I still live with them, please can I get a permanent job in conservation or ecology so I can move out, pretty pleeeeeease?!) and it gives them a chance to practice their bird watching skills and to knowing what species visit. So with this in mind I’ve picked one of the birds they saw yesterday during their survey.
What: Great Spotted Woodpecker Dendrocopus major (Linnaeus, 1758)
When: 25th January 2020
Where: My garden, Poynton, Cheshire, UK
Who saw it? My parents
How was it recorded? On the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch survey.
Is it bigger than a blackbird? About the same, maybe a little smaller.
What is it? The UK’s commonest species of woodpecker. An occasional but increasing visitor to garden bird feeders. They are black and white with the males having a red stripe at the back of their head and both sexes having a red lower ‘waist.’ They are one of the few species to be increasing in number in the UK (compare this to the closely related Lesser Spotted Woodpecker D. minor which has crashed dramatically). They make a distinctive hammering noise in the spring and give a high-pitched squeaking call as they fly in their bouncing manner. They mostly eat insects but will eat seeds and nuts too (hence visiting bird feeders).
A fact I have learned about this species: Have recently colonised Ireland; a country/island which has previously had no species of woodpecker at all.
Is it charismatic in my opinion? Yes, all woodpeckers are surely? They always brighten my day up and their drumming in spring is so evocative.
A Species a Day 
Reblogged this on Wolf's Birding and Bonsai Blog.
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