Tag Archives: birds

After spending a pleasant evening in Porto Moniz on the north-western tip of Madeira, our Feb 29th was to be spent going up into the mountains, crossing the central high ground’s so-called “Desert Plain” to wander along few more levadas and down towards the south coast again. Happily, the up component was courtesy of Messrs Ford, Mercedes and Benz in the forms of our two minibuses, leaving us with the 9mls/14.5kms of down on the other side.

We were tipped out right beside our first levada and began with the remnants of last night’s frost clinging on in the shady hollows. We were out in the open with views across swathes of gorse bushes to the distant and much lower south coast of the island. Other than the facts that we were still some way away from the coast and considerably higher, it felt reminiscent of the Cornish coastal path. This was much more my style than yesterday’s excursion into the cloud forest. Of course, the blue sky helped tremendously. Come to think of it, that bit may not resemble Cornwall much, either.

As with yesterday, the levada fell very gradually such that the water ran gently and silently. I was back marker armed with a whistle so I had time to play around a little. Out of curiosity, I decided to use my Garmin GPS to try and estimate the gradient of the levada. I plotted a waypoint at the beginning of the walk (altitude: 4310 ft/1314 mtrs) and another when we hit the two mile mark (altitude: 4262 ft/1299 mtrs). In two miles the levada had dropped a mere 48 feet. Rounding to make life easy, that’s ~50 ft in ~10000 ft, a gradient of roughly 0.5%. Well, it keeps me amused.

Lunch was my highlight of the day, not because of the food which was a basic supermarket picnic of bread, chorizo and Babybell cheese-alike (light – I didn’t do the purchasing!), but because we were in the company of a small flock of chaffinches. The chaffinches, it transpired, were quite partial to small pieces of bread and were particularly keen on torn off pieces of Babybell light. I was over the moon when I held scraps out on my upturned palm and the chaffinches fluttered in to feed from my hand. A female settled for a couple of seconds before flying off with her prize. Great stuff! (I know, I can’t help it, I just love being in touch with wildlife.)

A theme developed concerning wildlife on Madeira. Many of its species exhibit minor differences compared to their mainland counterparts and are Madeiran subspecies. This is true of the Chaffinch. Our Chaffinch is Fringilla coelebs whereas the Madeiran Chaffinch is Fringilla coelebs maderensis. I think describing the differences would be a bit challenging but it certainly looked noticeably different. Just for fun, here’s a composite picture of both, including one from our lunch party, in similar poses to compare – the Madeiran Chaffinch is above.

We needed our pathetic torches again on this walk to get through the longest tunnel of ~1km. Our leader, Donal, noted that the weather at the opposite end of the tunnel (the south side of the mountain) could often be quite different. We plunged in to darkness dimly illuminated by our CSI-style Maglites. About 12 minutes later we emerged into blazing cloudlight. Shortly after wards it began spitting with rain. A little later we were walking through steady and persistent rain. Donal had been quite right. Eventually, however, the rain subsided to reveal Messrs Ford, Mercedes and Benz waiting to complete our journey to the south coast and ferry us to our hotel at Ponta do Sol, where our 15 pairs of soiled walking boots managed to make short work of the hotel reception’s unserviceably white doormat. [Ed: Bloody tourists!]

Two things really impressed us about the Enotel at Ponta do Sol. Firstly, the architecture was noteworthy in that a relatively large hotel was designed outwardly to look like several smaller buildings. The multiple colours reminded me of Villajoyosa in Spain where they are similarly bold with colour, in a pleasing way. Check out the picture; that’s all one hotel – clever! Secondly, when we returned downstairs having showered and changed, the doormat had already been returned to its original virginal white state. Bravo Enotel!

The rooms were very spacious and comfortable, too. When we eventually retired, we propped open our Juliette balcony door and fell asleep to the sound of the Atlantic surf breaking on the stony shore literally just across the road. Very restful!

OK, so we’re not actually on Madeira to dance the lambada. We are actually here with Explore! to walk, amongst other things, some of the famous levadas. Levadas are irrigation channels but more of these later. Madeira is essentially a large, formerly volcanic mountain and the main “other thing” that we are targeting is the high ground (~1800m/5500ft) in the centre. Explore! runs small group holidays, some cultural, some more active, and this is our sixth with them.

Our group on this trip is 14 strong, plus the leader, Donal, who unsurprisingly hails from the Emerald Isle. As well as trying to get our ears tuned in to Portuguese for our first time – it sounded to us a bit like Spanish with a Russian accent – we had to tune our ears in to Donal’s lilting brogue. Yesterday, we became convinced he was telling us that, at some time in its early history, Madeira had been invaded by parrots until we finally realized he was saying pirates. Duh!

Today we were heading out to the eastern point of the island for what seemed like a modest limb loosening walk of 4½mls/7kms. Actually, I suspect that relatively gentle start is designed mostly for the tour leader, giving them a chance to assess the abilities of their new set of charges. To get to our start point at São Laurenço, we drove past Madeira’s other engineering highlight (other than its levadas): the airport runway extension which is a large flyover (no pun intended) supported on huge concrete pillars. They are clearly very proud of their runway, on Madeira.

This walk was a there-and-back affair, winding its way in an undulating fashion through an almost desert-type landscape with the Atlantic Ocean on both sides – more dramatic than picturesque. I personally find rocks a little on the dull side, preferring animate objects, but for those with the correct interest I’m sure the geology would prove fascinating. Courtesy of Donal’s instruction, I now know that things called intrusions exist in formerly volcanic regions. An example is shown in the picture on the right; just to the left of centre (Natalie Imbruglia?) are a couple of lighter strata stretching vertically from the shore to the top of the cliff.

We didn’t give Donal any concerns, everyone making it to the easternmost tip of Madeira without mishap where most of us chose to scale the 200m highpoint for the view (or just because it was there) before settling down to a packed lunch. There was also a wildlife highlight for those of us who prefer nature with a pulse. At our lunch spot a few LBJs (Little Brown Jobs) were hopping and flittering about. They looked a bit like Spotted Flycatchers but were more strongly flecked and behaving very differently. The birds turned out to be Berthelot’s Pipits (Anthus berthelotii), according to an information board (and Donal). They are resident to the Canary Islands and Madeira. Well done Carol for snagging a recognisable shot.

Chalk up a new one for our bird page – eventually.

We returned to our transport and noticed we had happily missed a rain shower as we were driven to Santana on the north side of the island for our second night followed by our first encounter with a levada the next day.

[Here's a link to a Google Earth plot of this walk. You'll need to save it to your computer before opening it up in Google Earth.]

There aren’t many advantages to winter in my book. One, though, is the chance to see a slightly different mix of birdlife in the garden. Only when the colder weather hits do we see Goldfinches dropping in to take their turn at our seed feeders. Whereas the usual suspects, Blue Tits, Great Tits and Chaffinches, etc., tend to grab a sunflower seed and fly away to eat it, these delightfully colourful winter additions sit on a perch and munch away in situ. I don’t really like photographs featuring feeders but, hitherto, that’s the only shot of Goldfinches I’d managed. Until now, that is. There’s a couple around again now we’ve got some colder temperatures and they’ve been using the Blackbird red berry larder bush from which to fly sorties. I managed to snag a decent shot while one was sitting in it waiting.

Goldfinches, of course, are resident all year but they deign to visit us only in winter. However, much to the annoyance of our local Blackbirds, “their” red berry bush, the one sheltering the Goldfinch above, also acts as a magnet to a very welcome winter migrant. Welcome by me, that is – the Blackbirds are less keen. This week three Redwings appeared and started munching the berries. They may be as common as dirt in Scandinavia but I find their winter visits quite exciting. With just three Redwings raiding the bush, the food source will last a while but a good sized flock of Redwings can strip it pretty swiftly. Here’s a couple of shots of the same individual, one with a nice catch light in its eye and the other with a nice juicy berry just disappearing down its gullet.

Last winter, for the first time, the berries attracted a small flock of Waxwings. I’d like that to be repeated but no sign so far. I think we need more severe weather for them.

After four nights in La Brenne, we made a longish run south to Millau to go “ooh, ah” at its justly famous viaduct. Whenever I look at it I can’t help but think, “how on earth did they build that” which is silly because I’ve seen a TV programme about its being built. Quite simply stunning! We spent another four nights of mildly indifferent weather, though not at all bad, and watched the local wildlife which consisted almost entirely of birds. We were camped beside the river Dourbie which provided Dippers (Cinclus cinclus), Grey Wagtails (Motacilla cinerea) and the vivid blue flash of a Kingfisher (Alcedo atthis) while overhead the enormous shapes of the very successfully re-introduced Griffon Vultures (Gyps fulvus) soared.

Then it was time to head for what I’d been thinking of as the main event, Les Alpilles. Les Alpilles are an attractive set of modest hills just north-east of the Camargue (the Rhone delta) and directly north of an area called La Plaine de la Crau. Here, reputedly, were a few quite well known (to naturalists) Odonata spotting spots. We’d stayed here a couple of years previously when I was beginning to develop my interest in dragonflies but, alas, I didn’t know we were near one of the Meccas for Odo-watching. Wildlife holidays are run to this place. Since our previously used campsite had decided to close early, we stayed at Camping Municipal des Romarins in Maussane-les-Alpilles. Some pitches are a little tight and it is a little urban for our usual tastes but quite adequate and conveniently located. The “free” (inclusive?) wi-fi made up for any shortcomings, too.

We began with the initially unassuming Canal de la Vallée des Baux. The habitat looked promising with quite a bit of floating greenery and plant-lined banks. The only slight downside was that access to the water’s edge wasn’t good. There is a footpath running along the north side of the canal but it was quite high with respect to the water and the banks were mostly overgrown and steep. Nonetheless, it proved a good little hunting ground. Enter new species #4: Spotted Darters (Sympetrum depressiusculum) which are entrants in the “dragonfly with the most difficult to pronounce scientific species name” award. Nice of them to have both sexes present, too – the red one is the male and the yellow, the female. As usual, I didn’t know what I was snapping away at until I studied the pictures back at base camp.

I snapped away at pretty much everything I saw, just to enable the compiling of a reasonably comprehensive list, and it’s a good job I did. There were some “Featherlegs” damselflies (Platycnemis) around and I was initially guilty of assuming that they were my usual White-legged Damselflies/Blue Featherlegs (P. pennipes). I deleted several shots back at Billy ‘cos I’ve got loads already. I had been very much mistaken. These were new species #5: White Featherlegs (Platycnemis latipes). Fortunately I managed to snag a very obliging couple in-cop after I had realized my grievous mistake.

Probably the main wildlife attraction in the area is the Peau de Meau or Coussouls de Meau. To visit this, you should first call in to the Ecomussee de la Crau in the nearby town of St-Martin-de-Crau and purchase a permit for a mere €3 (at the time of writing). Keep it all legal and support such wildlife habitat protection. We did so and set off to discover what all the fuss was about.

As one of Europe’s premier Odonata sites, I don’t know what I was really expecting but, whatever it was, this wasn’t it. I honestly thought we had come to the wrong place but would my Navigation Officer let me down? No, of course not. The place looks more like a desert than anything else, very flat and very stony. It’s basically a flood plain and the Coussouls name has something to do with it’s being used for grazing sheep. A very stiff breeze was blowing. We did begin to see a few darter dragonflies on the flat, stony plain but they were trouble flying. In fact, they were having trouble holding on to any perches.

We soon realized that the main attraction when it comes to Odos is a quite fat stream that flows past the main entrance, such as it is. In places, this stream is afforded some shelter from the wind by a hedgerow. The first characters we saw here were stunningly beautiful, utterly drop-dead gorgeous Copper Demoiselles (Calopteryx haemorrhoidalis), new species #5 and one that must be a contender in the “most difficult scientific name to spell” competition. Fortunately, I was wearing my specialist Salomon Aqua-tech shoes and could wade about in the stream trying to get better shots of them. With the metallic purple sheen of the males, these creatures are so captivating, it really was difficult to drag myself away to investigate further afield.

I’ve already been away in our caravan since my prostatectomy but the caravan is still a very personal space. However, last weekend was another milestone of sorts in that we ventured over to near Ipswich where we would be staying with some old friends in their space. When I stay old friends, I mean friends of long-standing, of course. Our friends still work but, courtesy of the long awaited – at least, it seemed long-awaited – Royal Wedding, they’d be chez-eux on Friday so they didn’t mind when we turned up. We thought we’d take advantage of our route and check the RSPB’s HQ at Sandy, Bedfordshire, en route to see who might be hanging around before descending upon them in the late afternoon.

Also courtesy of the Royal Wedding, the roads were very quiet – reminiscent of travelling in France. In this respect, we should have Royal Weddings more often. On second thoughts, maybe not, since they let Satan’s Little Disciples out of school. Anyway, it seemed most of the wildlife was also inside watching the pomp and ceremony. I spotted a Stock Dove (not a Woodpigeon) but it was a very poor specimen, poorly positioned photographically, that would have been better off in some stock. I also caught the green flash of a Green Woodpecker flitting between trees but all in all, it was very quiet bird-wise. Disappointing. My highlight was a small pond where, above a few Smooth Newts in breeding plumage, a Pond Skater (Gerris) seemed to be tucking into a hapless Alder Fly (Sialis). On the surface (pun intended), Pond Skaters look fairly harmless but they are actually pretty fearsome creatures; I’ve seen a picture of several overpowering a dragonfly.

On Saturday, strong winds screaming in off the north sea at Aldburgh provided a refreshing blow along the very pebbly beach. Watching seagulls flying backwards was quite amusing. I think this one, a Herring Gull (Larus argentatus), is trying to look behind itself to see where it might be going. Just kidding, it was making slow forward progress. Less amusing was our attempting to walk back to the car into the headwind. I understood the seagull’s concern.

Another wild and windy but clear day on Sunday proved Alton Water Reservoir to be far more successful on the bird front than the RSPB reserve at Sandy on Friday. A couple of years ago in France, we spent many hours trying to identify the owner of a particularly piercing, melodious voice. We were a little surprised but delighted to hear that same, haunting melody ringing out around the wooded edge of the reservoir. They are secretive birds that normally remain steadfastly hidden in foliage, even at a distance of 3m/10ft, making a photo nigh on impossible. When one obligingly hops onto a branch right in front of you and begins singing, however, one’s chances improve dramatically. The tuneful culprit is a Nightingale (Luscinia megarhynchos). Here’s a sample: Nightingale song

The luck wasn’t over yet. Back to our friends’ back garden for a sunny Sunday barbecue and good ol’ Hawk-eyes Carol spotted what at first looked like a Hornet (large flying thing with yellow on it) buzz into the garden. It alighted on a shrub (don’t quote me about the shrub) and said, “photograph me please”. You can see how the yellow might cause confusion from a distance but this is a magnificent, young and therefore pristine, male Broad-bodied Chaser (Libellula depressa). Mature males develop a blue pruinescence (powdery coating) on their abdomens and look very different. I confess to initially thinking that this was a female, since I’ve only previously seen older pruinose males, before being corrected by my good friends at iSpot. Live and learn!

Another great weekend, if a little on the wild side, and all went well, as expected. How long is this ridiculous but beautiful weather going on, though?

Will this winter never end? I’m ready for an improvement in the weather and some R & R. Still, at least I’ve been using the grey days to try and get over my December medical hiatus. The other thing I’ve been doing recently is playing with my new toy, the Nikon digiscoping kit, in an effort to familiarize myself with using it effectively.

Every now and then we see a grey streak flash through our garden like a jet fighter trying to impress the crowd at an air display with its low-level flying capability. Normally it doesn’t stop and pose – just flashes through and is gone. It did it a couple of times today, zooming in an elegant curve across our patio at head height, doing a wing tip turn, its underside towards our windows. The grey streak in question is a Sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus). We’re very protective of our little avian friends so we have mixed feelings about it. It is a truly magnificent creature, though, and it’s got to eat.

Just after one of its crowd-pleasing passes today, my hawk-eyed wife somehow managed to spot where it went. It was sitting on a branch in the woods just beyond our back garden fence. With our normal cameras (my decent lens is still away hopefully being fixed), that position would be about as much use as a wheel clamp on a gondola. However, it was certainly worth trying the 20x magnification of the digiscoping contraption. However, it would have to stay put for long enough for me to realign the tripod and find the basically grey bird in amongst a lot of similar looking bare grey branches. I think wrestling hurriedly with a scope mounted on a tripod gave me an insight into how Scottish regimental bandsmen feel trying to control a set of bagpipes. I still pray that they never actually get the pipes sufficiently under control to blow through them, though. :O

Unlike the pipers, after a few choice phrases that discoloured the air a little, I finally got my tripod legs under control with the cooperative raptor still perched on the branch and looking for its lunch. My luck continued as it remained in situ while I found it through the scope. Constantly jiggling with the focus – it isn’t easy seeing when it’s actually in focus on a compact digital’s screen – I managed to get off eight shots or so. The last one was very interesting: when my brain said “press the cable release”, the hawk was still sitting on the branch but by the time the shutter fired – bloody compact camera delays – it had launched itself towards me. Amazingly, though not pin sharp, the beast is basically in focus. Please notice those piercing yellow-outlined eyes. As I now know from iSpot, falcons do not have any yellow in their eyes, hawks do. There, now you know. Either way, you do not want to be a Coal Tit watching this bearing down upon you.

Speaking of Coal Tits (Periparus ater), a little later in the day, one cooperative Coal Tit, having avoided becoming lunch for the Saprrowhawk, alighted on our Acer staging post and posed for a picture. Cute little fellows, aren’t they?

No, not turkey, not goose, not guinea fowl and not pheasant.

It’s been only just over week since I lost my infernal catheter and now I’m in the expected period of leaking. I am happy to report that I believe I detect some improvement in that I seem sometimes to be able to control myself when standing up, albeit for relatively modest periods of time. It’s the standing that’s difficult; things are much better when sitting or lying down. There’s still some way to go but I think I’m moving in the correct direction.

Carol and I are developing techniques to enable me to help with a few domestic chores, such as making her cappuccinos, washing pots and pans, and occasionally resuming my rôle of galley slave, all from the relative safety and drier comfort of a kitchen bar stool.

I’d love to be able to go out for a walk through our snowy woods but that’s trying to walk before I can stand. Not yet a good idea. However, there is one way I can enjoy the wildlife that we are fortunate enough to have surrounding us. Given our bird feeders which supplement a few entirely natural food sources, I can sit perched on my favourite bar stool and snap some of our feathered friends through various windows. Light reflections off the window glass are unwelcome but a little jiggery-pokery in some editing software can improve things and produce an acceptable result.

So, after the enforced laziest Christmas I can remember, here’s a small collection of some of our entertaining Christmas birds.

Starting with the red berry brigade: on the left are two attacking Redwings (Turdus iliacus) complete with plunder in their beaks, and on the right is the hen blackbird (Turdus merula) that mounts such a staunch defence, not only against the Redwings but also against all other blackbirds.

There are so may Redwings popping in and out of the berry bush that it’s far too easy to overlook birds of a similar appearance. I nearly did so when I looked at “another Redwing” eventually noticing that it lacked any red. Whoops – a Song Thrush (Turdus philomelos) had come visiting. Here it is looking rightly a little indignant over my initial reaction. Accusing it of being a foreigner, indeed!

After a quick feed on some scattered nuts and seeds, a Robin (left – Erythacus rubecula) hopped up onto the winter skeleton of an Acer and appeared to look straight at me as if it knew I was watching.

Last and certainly not least, is this little gem of a bird. We are lucky enough to have Goldcrests (Regulus regulus) more or less resident in a sizeable conifer in our front garden. Apart from being Britain’s smallest bird (I think), they are also very fast and zoom frenetically about the tree after food. This combination of size and movement makes them buggers to photograph. From the comfort of an office chair I got this, my first mostly recognisable Goldcrest shot, together with about a dozen failures. 6/10 – must try harder.

Given all the harsh weather that we and our wild creatures have been “enjoying” this season, I had been wondering why I hadn’t seen any Redwings decimating the red berries in our garden. Actually, to be fair, the red berries are on a bush in our neighbour’s garden but many of the berry-laden branches hang over into our patch. The inconvenient weather has introduced me to the spectacular Waxwing for the first time but where were the Redwings?

At last, today, they turned up. Carol spotted them this morning so I grabbed a stool and my camera and settled down hoping for some favourable poses. The Redwings (Turdus iliacus) seemed quite prepared to cooperate. Our resident Blackbirds, however, had other ideas; they were chasing the Redwings around and of the bush relentlessly. The poor Redwings were given very little time to alight, grab a berry and toss it back down their throat before a protective Blackbird shooed them away. Speed was essential, not necessarily easy when wielding TheBeast but eventually, having missed several, I snagged a few reasonable shots.

In a lull, when the Redwings had scarpered for some respite from their constantly being harassed, I spotted the distinctive stick-and-ball shape of a Long-tailed Tit (Aegithalos caudatus) on our fat feeder way down at the bottom of our garden – much too far away to be worth pressing the shutter. Shortly, though, one came up and posed very pertly on the peanuts quite close to my vantage point, a bedroom window. Long-tailed Tits really are the most charismatic of little birds. I hope we see more of them.

If there is any advantage to this harsh winter weather, it is the fact that it tends to increase the species we see close to our homes.

Yesterday afternoon my personal chauffeuse took me and my unwelcome medical attachment out for a swift jaunt. It’s good to get some fresh air and a change of scenery but there was a more pressing reason for our short trip. Word had reached us through Carol’s Greensand Trust connections that a flock of Waxwings (Bombycilla garrulus) had chosen Woburn as a base. This was exciting news – we’d never before seen a Waxwing and were keen to investigate.

Woburn may be a relatively small village but there are many trees, let alone the Duke’s large estate, and when you’re looking for highly mobile birds, mobile in three dimensions, no less, there’s a lot of relatively large haystack to search for a relatively small needle. We thought we knew the general area in which they’d been spotted and set off.

We need not have worried. On our route into Woburn before getting anywhere near our intended search area, we spotted a huddle of half a dozen people standing by the roadside with an assortment of binoculars and cameras raised to their eyes. “Ah ha”, we thought, quick-wittedly, and continued to the car park to return on foot. Walking slowly, my medical attachment made me yelp only once or twice.

A flock of 40 or so Waxwings was sitting relaxing in a bare branches of a tree a little way from the road, in some lucky person’s back garden. Oh to be in that house! Waxwings are colourfully marked birds and we should have come in the morning when the sun was out and would have made their colours sparkle. As it was the light was completely pants. From a distance they looked nothing special but modest binoculars revealed their distinctive crests.

Beside the road were other trees in people’s front gardens bearing white berries. As we waited and watched, every now and then a few Waxwings would break away from the flock and flap over to the berry-laden trees, grab a few and flap back. Here, they were close enough for some of their colours to show. The light was still rubbish but I did manage to get a couple of recognisable Waxwing shots for the first time.

Waxwings are as common as muck in Scandinavia, apparently. How delightful! Oh, and the berries were Sorbus (Whitebeam), I am informed by friends at iSpot. If these guys like it, get planting!

A cold but sunny Friday generated quite a bit of bird activity on our feeders. Furthermore, there was enough light for me to have a try using TheBeast++ (my 1.4X extender on my 100-400 lens). I’d have to confess, it’s an awkward combination to use because at 400mm, you’re stuck with F8 – not only is bags of light required but you have to focus manually. I think the issue is that there’s not enough aperture for the autofocus to function correctly.

Whilst I was trying to focus, clicking away and watching, I noticed a very strange looking … well, Great Tit, I think. It didn’t look like any other Great Tit I’d ever seen. At least, it didn’t look like a healthy one. It appeared to have serious problems with its neck. Frankly, it looked bloodstained – almost as though its throat had been cut. Despite having some nasty window glare because of my shooting angle, I snapped the poor little fellow to have a closer look at what ailed it later on the computer. Closer inspection reveals a substantial growth like a cyst just below its lower beak. Its chest is quite clearly messy but it may be feathers in poor condition rather than blood stains. It is certainly not a happy Great Tit. Rather, it is a Not-So-Great Tit.

It seems that there is a viral infection called Avian Pox to which Great Tits are particularly susceptible. We’re wondering if that is what is affecting our poor chap. It is recommended that bird feeders be regularly disinfected to prevent the spread of this disease. Naturally, disinfecting bird feeders, even with teh recommended simple solution of hot soapy water, is a bit of a pain. However, if not doing it causes this, then do it we must. Yesterday, after the sun set and the birds stopped feeding, Carol removed and cleaned our feeders. We left them drying overnight.

This morning, we surfaced in a casual manner, as befits the retired, and began brewing the first essential dose of caffeine at about 8:00. Our bird feeder poles sat out on the patio naked – unadorned either by plastic containers of sunflower seeds or wire containers of peanuts. Since the feeders were absent, so were the perches. We were surprised to see one of our resident Great Spotted Woodpeckers zoom down to the pole normally offering a supply of peanuts. Somehow it managed deftly to land atop our now perchless pole, glanced left, glanced right then leaned forward and scrutinized the top of the pole sans feeder. I’m now convinced that Great Spotted Woodpeckers are capable of thought. I could see this one quite clearly thinking, “where have the ****ing peanuts gone?” Naturally, my camera wasn’t around to capture the moment so I’m afraid my description will have to suffice. As consolation, though, here’s a picture I did nab of the critter successfully raiding the sunflower feeder before we nicked it for a darn good cleaning.

It was so heart-wrenching watching a clearly disappointed GSW that Carol bravely went out dressed only in pyjamas and short dressing gown to replace the feeders. Bravo!