WINTER’S WILDLIFE

Another year looks like it’ll pass without a late winter rendezvous with arguably the most elusive bird of our broadleaf woodlands.

If any bird lives up to its name, then it is the lesser spotted woodpecker. It’s been ages since I last spotted one.

Winter’s melt into early spring is the best time to see these strikingly beautiful but remarkably enigmatic birds.

Early spring is also when they are at their noisiest, drumming frantically on dead branches with stiletto beaks and uttering highpitched, whistling songs.

For several years, I would make an annual pilgrimage to a local arboretum where a particularly brazen male, only a little larger than a chaffinch and with a striking crimson crown, would put on a show in a long-dead ash tree.

Sadly, lesser spotted woodpeckers are becoming frustratingly difficult to find. Between 1970 and 2015, breeding numbers declined by 83 per cent and the latest population estimate stands at little more than 1,000 UK pairs, with Hampshire and Kent the main strongholds.

The loss of so many traditional orchards – a favourite wintering habitat – has been suggested as one of the reasons for their decline.

The British Trust for Ornithology’s Paul Stancliffe explains: “Lesser spotted woodpeckers don’t move very far throughout their lives and, due to the fragmentation and isolation of their favoured habitat, they have become somewhat isolated themselves, making it more difficult for them to move into new territories.”