The Great Spotted Woodpecker is one of the most exotic birds to appear on the British bird feeder. His bold black-and-white markings with a pink ventral area and scarlet nape (the female lacks this last detail) is breath-stoppingly dramatic. The nine-inch-long Great Spotted is doing well in this country, becoming permanently established in suburban and city gardens, and is far more common than his rare and diminutive cousin, the sparrow-sized Lesser Spotted. The bird’s metallic ‘kuk’ call, repeated several times as it moves from tree to tree, or when closing in on the nut feeder, has sometimes been confused with the protest of a blackbird. In the spring his drumming is the fastest of all the woodpeckers, a rapid staccato beaten out on a dead branch, telephone pole or even sheet of metal. He is proclaiming territory and advertising for a mate. This drumming by woodpeckers is not to be confused with their daily habit of chiselling noisily into tree trunks when excavating nesting holes or drillingbeneath the bark for grubs. Evolution, it seems, has provided them with cushioning for their brains and muscles that act as shock absorbers — or they would, I imagine, have permanent headaches.
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