• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
Where premium quality meets exceptional value. ZEISS Conquest HDX.

Woodpeckers causing power outages in Ireland (1 Viewer)

Couldn’t get to the site, said “the page you are looking for no longer exists.” Just thinking about it, they would have to be pecking a heck of a lot of holes to do that.
 
This video is in French, but the images clearly show the problem linked to the Woodpecker. It is mentioned that 100,000 posts have been damaged by the Woodpecker and 12,000 must be replaced...
 
So I found the article on yahoo.news: ‘Dramatic spread’ of woodpeckers in Ireland causes electricity blackouts.
And part of the article was this: “The woodpeckers had left holes in the poles, which began to rot. This forced ESB Networks to remove and replace them and led to scheduled power outages.”
So, I am surmising (not using assume - because well) that the poles were probably needing to be replaced anyway due to age.
 
This video is in French, but the images clearly show the problem linked to the Woodpecker. It is mentioned that 100,000 posts have been damaged by the Woodpecker and 12,000 must be replaced...
So even nesting woodpeckers only cause pole replacement in about 10% of cases: and these ones in Ireland are migrants.

John
 
I don't believe a word of it because those poles won't make woodpecker drums. Drumming is on thinner branches that resonate.

John
that is why I posted this article with a degree of caution. I was tempted to post it on the joke of the day thread.
Why would a woodpecker peck treated wood in the first place?
 
that is why I posted this article with a degree of caution. I was tempted to post it on the joke of the day thread.
Why would a woodpecker peck treated wood in the first place?
Well, a wooden pole is just that. I've seen breeding holes for Red-headed Woodpecker in telephone poles in Florida and I daresay other species use them in other places.

But a treated pole isn't going to yield a lot of food until the treatment chemicals have had plenty of time to leach out: and it's never going to be a drum.

John
 
I'm worried now that woodpeckers will start pecking at posts in this forum.
Woodpeckers aren't omniscient... I've seen Syrian Woodpeckers land on, and attempt to drum/peck, concrete power poles in Slovakia and Hungary... (The resultant sounds were odd, very odd...)
MJB
 
As Electrical Engineering student, this new was really interesting and bit sad, hope they don't destroy the returned woodpeckers. And find an alternative
Here we have pole made of cement or steel so it's not possible to get damage by birds around here
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top