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Shy female Great Spotted Woodpecker

A 30 second video clip of a female Great Spotted Woodpecker at a garden feeder, although a very special first for me, would have taken the limelight away from a star sighting in my lengthy last post. So yes, you were right Sue, the ‘W’ was for Woodpecker too 🙂

What’s really special about this video capture is that it highlights the one concern I have about seeing quite few glimpses of this nervous, exciting to see, bird at my feeders. Nesting time is my concern. The Woodpecker will raid nests and nestboxes for eggs and young and I have a nestbox in my garden that is favoured by the little Blue tit which is seen above feeding happily with the Woodpecker.

Oh dear… it’s a case of being careful with what you wish for. Introducing our new (shy) regular at the bird feeders, a female Great Spotted Woodpecker…

Seeing as it’s the weekend, I’ll keep this short like my video clip above. If you’ve more time and missed my last ‘I spy’ post you can see it here. The photos here are screen captures from the video clip. My weekend challenge is to capture photos with my camera – if I’m quick enough. If it’s dry I might get some garden tidying up and the winter duvet on my Gunnera to protect it.

Wishing you a great weekend 🙂 I know at least one other blogger that is trying to capture video footage of a Great Spotted Woodpecker at garden feeders – Good luck John! Have you any challenges and garden works planned? Lol… Mrs Woodpecker below is thinking about it 😉

This post was published by Shirley for shirls gardenwatch in November 2012.

8 thoughts on “Shy female Great Spotted Woodpecker

  1. What a beautiful lady. Maybe you don't have to worry about her. She might just be looking for an easy meal this winter and will go back to where she came from when the nesting season begins. I have been trying to just get pictures of a red-breasted nuthatch coming to my feeder. They are so quick I haven't a decent picture yet. Thank goodness for digital cameras. Have a great weekend.

  2. Hi Shirl,

    Lovely to see a Woodpecker; never seen any around here and don't expect to either 🙁
    I'd dearly love to have Nuthatches visiting and they would be my ultimate bird to have but for the same reasons I have no Woodies – I don't have any Nutties either.

    Do you know if these Woodpeckers are nesting nearby? Do you have woodland where they could be popping over from?

  3. Sorry to hear you are having so many problems with spam. It seems to be the bain of our technological world.
    For my landline phone I installed a TrueCall box. You have to buy the unit but the facility to bar as many nuisance numbers as you want, amongst other facilities, is a godsend. Yearly costs are £15 but only if you want to access their web site to maintain the box that way.

    There are apps for Android to bar numbers but the one I tried screwed up my phone. Unfortunately there is not one for the iPhone as a third party app intercepting their own phone app is against Apple's rulings.

    Brilliant photos / video of Woody. Great to see she still visits. Mine comes on rare occasions as far as I can tell.

  4. Lovely video and captures Shirl. They really are a colourful addition to the garden and only a very occasional one to mine, so nice that yours is becoming a regular. I hope you don't have problems with the nest boxes, you might need to attach a metal plate to the entrance hole to prevent 'drilling' if it starts to show too much interest although having said that I have heard of them drilling into a different part of the box if thwarted! Hopefully though you will have no such problems 🙂

    Well done too on your recent Waxwings sighting, so exciting! I think I was the only person who didn't see one in 2010/11 🙁 and have never seen one at all yet, maybe this Winter will be my time. They are lovely birds, I hope you manage to attract them into the garden with your apples soon. I also loved the photos of the Blackbird with the berries on that post.

  5. Lovely pictures – I've only seen a woodpecker in my garden once – never did manage to get a clear picture.
    New to blogging and am having a great time visiting so many different blogs. Thank you.

  6. Hello everyone, thanks for all your comments. Sorry it’s been so long for my replies. You’ll understand why when you read my next post.

    Sue, absolutely – I was expecting a sharp beak to the right at any moment!

    Lisa, she certainly is! I hope she doesn’t become a problem next Spring. Mmm… have considered replacing my existing nestcam box with one that she might be interested in. Unfortunately, there’s a Blue tit rooster in there just now and I’d feel cruel sending it out into the cold. Oooo…. I’m looking forward to seeing any images you get of your nuthatch! It’s way more rewarding getting images when they are a challenge aren’t they 🙂

    David, thank-you! As always I want to get better images as this has been such a treat to see in my garden and sight I’d never have thought I’d see. It’s a shame you don’t see many usually with you. Perhaps, this will change this year. I’ve heard many people saying the GSW’s are being seen in gardens. The trouble is, based on watching our regular female now, they are very shy and visits can last less than a minute and often only 30 seconds . I’ve just been lucky to be looking out my window at the time – very lucky 😀

    Liz, it is, I really feel quite privileged to see this bird in my garden. Shame you don’t see them – maybe you will this year. Now, as for Nuthatches… they are on my garden wishlist too! I suspect you are going to have more luck than me there. I read somewhere that sightings have been seen heading up my way but they don’t favour the North I believe. I never give up hope though 🙂 No, I have no idea if the GSW nests nearby but yes there are woodlands not too far away. At present there is building work going on at the edge of the woodland so perhaps this initially brought the GSW out looking over gardens.

    John, thanks for the info John, it is through emails coming to my phone that I have had the bother. It appears to have stopped now but I really didn’t want to stop Anonymous comments. Yes, I’m wary of what apps to add. Thanks, I’m deleighted to report that our GSW is now a regular but she is so quick sometimes lasting just 30 seconds at the feeder. Perhaps you could set up one of you capture cams on a feeder/area a GSW has been and you might get a surprise. I’ve heard lots of stories of them coming to gardens this year.

    Jan, thank-you, colourful indeed. This lady is now a regular visitor. From what I’ve read and seen via video footage the GSW has worked out to drill near the bottom corner to get at eggs and young. One solution, as I mention above might be to change my camera nestbox over to one for the GSW. That could be fun. To my knowledge my neighbours don’t have nestboxes up so I wouldn’t feel uncomfortable about doing this. It would be fantastic to share a GSW nestbox family! I’ve never seen the Waxwings since, but that makes their brief visit all the more exciting. I was thrilled, after a few winters, to finally get clear photos of Blackbirds with berries in their mouths. From memory you’ve captured birds with berries quite a few times when out on your walks. It’s great fun trying to capture the moment isn’t it – thanks goodness for digital cameras 😀

    Angie, thanks for stopping by. First off I’d like to welcome you to the blogging world and on quickly popping over to your blog just now I am thrilled to see that you’ve had a GSW visiting too! It is such a delight to see – wishing you many more sightings. I’ll be over to browse your blog soon to see what you get up to. Nice to discover a blog up my way too 😀

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