Every day is a school day #485, Woodpeckers
For the past couple of weeks, we have been hearing the gentle, rhythmic tapping of a woodpecker in the coppice directly behind the Green Team Interiors HQ, here in beautiful Hampshire.
Obviously, it’s one of those ‘first sign of spring’ events like the appearance of crocuses, the mornings getting brighter, the days getting longer and Easter eggs hitting the shelves in the supermarkets.
So, it’s no great surprise then that we should start hearing our friend the woodpecker, but do you know why they repeatedly bang their bills against a tree? A quick canvass round the office revealed some differing suggestions, looking for food? Making a nest? Scaring away other birds?
No, no and sort of. Woodpeckers drum (the technical term) for the same reason that other birds sing, to attract a mate and mark their territory. This ‘fact’ is not entirely true, because of the three types of woodpeckers that we have in the UK, the Green Woodpecker hardly ever drums, choosing instead to ‘yaffle’. (Yaffle, apart from being a great Scrabble play, is the term for the mad laugh type of sound that the Green Woodpecker makes).
We can’t see our woodpecker but we’re fairly certain it’s of the Great Spotted variety, the most common in the UK. The males drum an astonishing 40 times per second, a feat that manages to impress us, let alone a lady woodpecker.
The other variety is the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker, barely bigger than a sparrow. Their drum solos last longer than the Greater Spotted but they create a sound that our ornithologist friend described as ‘a bit feeble’.
So there you have it, spring is in the air… quite literally.
