Great Spotted Woodpeckers taking ants from ant hill colonies NEast London. (1 Viewer)

[KenM]

Witnessed the above yesterday on a local plain where Green Woodpeckers are found in good nos.
Watched an imm. Great Spotted Woodpecker fly down from a tree adjacent to the plain and proceed to “excavate” an ants nest with a Green Woodpecker already doing the same, some 5m away!
Certainly a first for me, anyone else witnessed this behaviour from GSW?

Cheers

 

[David_]

I see GSWs doing this quite regularly in my parents garden when visiting them on weekends. The local Green Woodpecker sadly died a couple years ago so now the local GSW pair has the ants all for themselves

 

[WalterRayle]

I've seen it fairly regularly too, it's usually juvenile GSW that do it most often in my experience.

 

[aeshna5]

I remember seeing this somewhere in Europe but not seen it locally.