24/06/2024
Another wonderful wildlife image from Sherwood at the weekend.
A female Great Spotted Woodpecker feeds her chick in a nesthole made in a silver birch tree.
The Great Spotted Woodpecker is one of three resident species of woodpecker in the UK.
The others are the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker, which has a similar coloration to the Great Spotted, but is much smaller, and Green Woodpecker (the largest of the three), whose distinctive and slightly eerie 'laugh' is often heard throughout the forest.
All three can be found here at Sherwood Forest.
The Latin name for the Great Spotted Woodpecker is Dendrocopos Major, which is actually derived from the Ancient Greek words for 'tree' (dendro) and 'striking' (kopos).
You can hear the Great Spotted Woodpeckers drumming at up to 40 strikes per second into hollow branches in the forest, particularly during the winter and early spring.
Their call is a short, high-pitched 'kik' or 'kek' sound, which also frequently resounds through the tree canopy of Sherwood.
📷 Peter Calvert
