Great spots

Great Spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocopus major)

Occasionally, we get an unexpected visitor to our feeders. For a while, it was a wary female Great Spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocopus major) who snuck in for a quick nibble of sunflower seeds or fat balls every now and then. Her all-black nape identified her as a female; a male would have had a small red patch on the back of his neck. We know there is at least one breeding pair in the neighbourhood, as we regularly see them flying back and forth over the garden, and hear their challenges ringing from the strip of Holm Oaks along a nearby roadway. But we don't often get to see them in the garden itself – too few trees, presumably! 

Great Spots are common and widespread from southern England to southern Scotland, and have recently colonised several areas in Ireland. Unlike the ant-eating Green Woodpecker, they are almost exclusively arboreal, spending little (if any) time on the ground. Their strong claws and stiff tail feathers help them to prop themselves up as they hitch their way up and down tree trunks and branches. The broad white wing stripe and bright red undertail help to separate them from the smaller (but also black and white) Lesser Spotted Woodpecker, which lacks the stripe and the red undertail. Sadly, Lesser Spots are now very rare in the U.K. and would certainly be extremely unlikely in our garden. Like all woodpeckers, Great Spots feed primarily on insects, but will also eat some seeds, particularly conifer seeds. They're also know to take bird eggs and nestlings.