A Woodpecker Experience! (1 Viewer)

i just looked out the window - to see a Great Spotted Woodpecker! I hardly ever see them anymore after they stopped coming to the bird table! It was fantastic! It was hopping around, lightly pecking certain parts of the oak tree - to check where it's best to drum?

Then, it started drumming! Very loud and fast! It then continued hopping between the branches, then returned to drum in the same place!

Once it starts drumming, is that where it will nest? Or does it do it in lots of places? I was wondering because it flew away to fields when disturbed. It would be great to have them nesting!

Whatever happens, it provided fantastic, uninterupted views of it! Amazing bird!

Well, it is a woodpecker. The drumming is for two reasons, one to advertise itselt, the other to find food. They test drill lots before they find the insects.

A great find David, some information on their drumming times recorded, 0.4-0.8 sec. hope you get more good views.

They drum in lots of places, it is used to define their whole territory; when drumming they select very resonant bits of wood (usually dead snags) to make the most noise; these are usually too small to nest in, so it won't use the same drumming site for nesting.

The very resonant wood they drum on is also usually very dry, so doesn't contain much food, so they're not feeding there.

Woodpeckers also excavate wood to search for food, but they don't do this by drumming, they do it by more powerful blows at a much slower hit rate, thwack, - thwack, - thwack, not dr.r.r.r.r.r.

Our Northern Flickers and Lewis's Woodpeckers love drumming on the old, obsolete TV antennae that's still erected in one of our ponderosa pine trees. What a bizarre sound that makes! Otherwise, as Nutcracker says, they seem to like dead, hollow-sounding branches and trunks.

Thanks everyone. I didn't think it was looking for food. Hopefully it will excavate a nest around here though!