Val Bourne: a green woodpecker is a sure sign of rain, says Val
If you hear a green woodpecker it’s a sign of rain, says Val
I’M not very good at recognising birdsong, as sadly I’m not musical. Like my daughters and my father used to say, I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket! I’ve also got limited hearing, and always have had, so I envy people who can say, ‘Listen to that bird.’
However, there’s one bird I can always identify and that is the green woodpecker (Picus viridis), because it cackles and sounds as though it’s going ‘hee, hee, hee’. Even if I can’t see it, I know when it’s around because the call goes on and on. In fact, one of its common names is the yaffle bird.
The green woodpecker is the largest of our three native woodpeckers and it’s green, rather than black and white like the other two. We get the great spotted woodpecker (Dendrocopos major) on our birdfeeders and, if we’re lucky, a family will appear in July. There are normally two offspring with one parent, and the features of the young soon mature.
The great spotted woodpecker is common in gardens, but the lesser spotted woodpecker (Dendrocopos minor), which is only the size of a sparrow, is on the Birds of Conservation Concern Red List. I haven’t seen this elusive bird for 30 years, despite looking.
The green woodpecker is cumbersome in flight and on the ground. When it flies it shows a flash of yellow, and the flight rises and falls in gentle curves. It isn’t a wood borer like the other two, although it will peck wood. It feeds on the ground and enjoys rummaging in anthills, especially after rain. We have an anthill in our garden that’s always full of stab wounds, so we know they’re visiting. If we’re lucky, we sometimes see one or two juveniles in early summer.
These woodpeckers lay between five and seven eggs from May to June, which are incubated for 18 days. The fledging period is 23-27 days and you’re more likely to see this in southern and eastern England. The males have a red moustache.
Ants are the big lure in gardens, because the adults, eggs and larvae are the green woodpecker’s favourite food. I was very sad when a tractor demolished three large anthills on the other side of our stone wall this summer – another food source mechanically removed in seconds!
Green woodpeckers reach ants with their incredibly long tongues and I’ve watched these birds in action in our garden from a bedroom window. The tongue is apparently flattened at the tip, although it moves too quickly to see this, and it doesn’t have any barbs like the other two woodpeckers’ tongues. Enlarged salivary glands lubricate and coat the tongue with a sticky mucus that helps the ants to stick.
When autumn arrives, reducing ant activity, green woodpeckers turn to windfall apples – a reminder of how useful an apple tree or two in the garden is for wildlife. This woodpecker doesn’t move from its territory when the ant supply dries up so, if you see one in summer it’s likely to stay put in winter. Staying in one place allows this bird to build up intricate knowledge of where the food supplies are.
Although the green woodpecker is on the Green List, so numbers are not declining, the territories are changing due to changes in land use and climate change. There are more pairs than there were in central and eastern Scotland, but fewer in Wales and south-west England. This may be due to climate change or wetter winters producing longer lush grass because ants prefer shorter grass that’s grazed by sheep. This is why green woodpeckers visit your lawn – to look for ants.
The green woodpecker is also known as the rain bird, and when we had changeable weather in July, sure enough, just before it rained, this bird would begin calling. It’s far easier to poke your tongue in the ground after rain. Sounds carry in damp air, so perhaps the song becomes louder, but every time I heard one loudly this summer, it was followed by rain.
“Ants are a big lure in gardens”