Duck for cover if you hear the green woodpecker’s ‘yaffle’
I LOVE the vernacular Yorkshire names for green woodpeckers, “hefful”. It was derived from its old English name of “Hyghwhele” which I think must have been an early attempt at describing its cry, an almost hysterical laughing sound.
On still days this seems to carry over fairly long distances, and at the weekend I heard it with great clarity from the best part of half a mile away on the far side of Shipley Glen to the north of Bradford.
In the famous folklore ballad Robin Hood and Guy Gisborne collected by Francis Child, the green woodpecker is referred to as a “wood weele”, so it is reasonable to think that this was its medieval name in those South Yorkshire and Nottinghamshire areas associated with the legendary outlaw.
In fact there are at least 40 old vernacular names for the bird in the UK, many of them associated with that laughter-like call, but the one that is now in general use is the “yaffle”.
Visually, the species cannot be confused with any other bird in the UK, having as it name suggests a highly distinctive green plumage. Its bright yellow rump and red crown simply add to its beauty.
Although no one would describe the green woodpecker as common, with the exception of Holderness it does seem to turn up in most parts of Yorkshire, at least at locations where it is likely to find its favourite food, the red wood ant, which it positively hoovers up with a long sticky tongue.
Its preferred habit is parkland, open heaths and the edges of woodland. There is little evidence of the bird moving around different locations in Yorkshire, let alone migrating to and from the continent.
Although we associate woodpeckers with trees, the ants are generally eaten on the ground and that is where I have always seen green woodpeckers, although like our two other native woodpeckers they nest in trees. A few years ago I was able to sit on one of the picnic benches at the front of White Wells on Ilkley Moor and at fairly close range watch a female – which lacks the red moustache of the male – seemingly teach a newly fledged chick how to lick up ants from a path through the heather.
There is a fascinating old myth about green woodpeckers: they have the ability to forecast wet weather. For this reason one of the vernacular names is “rain bird”, or in Northumberland “rain fowl”.
Even the pioneering 19th century ornithologist William Yarrell believed this. In his History of British Birds he wrote it was “highly probable” that no change in the weather occurs without a change in atmospheric electricity. “Birds, entirely covered as they are with feathers, which are known to be readily affected with electricity, should be susceptible of certain impressions. Thus birds become living barometers to good observers.”
According to the myth, the way that green woodpeckers convey their forecast of rain is to do more yaffling. So perhaps we should consider heading for shelter the next time we hear one.