Sunday, January 08, 2012
Burnham Beeches and adjoining woods
In Egypt Woods I caught sight of a lesser spotted woodpecker while looking for siskins. I watched him for a good ten minutes, losing him as he flew further into the woods.
An hour or so later I had a second lesser-spot sighting in dreadful light on the edge of Burnham Beeches. This time I couldn't see the red crown of a male, although looking at the very poor photos, the bird appears to show a whitish crown which may or may not have hints of red.
Anyway, the bird is clearly not the one seen earlier in Egypt Woods, whose red crown was bright and conspicuous.
But in actual fact more than one bird was present, though I didn't realise it at the time! A poor video clip just shows a second bird feeding at the bottom of the picture, and then a third bird zooming in from the right causing the second bird to fly upwards. I wonder if this straight-up flight is unique to lesser spots; I've also filmed one flying straight down.
I could kick myself now, because although I crossed the road into Dorney Wood as at least one of the woodpeckers had done, I then allowed myself to become distracted by an immense chaffinch flock. The chaffinches, and at least one brambling, were making a lovely soft rustling sound as they searched through the dead leaves for beech-mast.
So all three woods were involved today; and I'm sure now that there were three lesser spotted woodpeckers interacting in my very poor video clip. But was the original male in Egypt Woods one of these, or was he additional? Did I in fact record four lesser spotted woodpeckers today? Fascinating stuff - to the extent that it's now nearly four o'clock and I still haven't had my lunch!
// posted by Christine @ 7:24 AM 
