Tim writes: Green Woodpeckers are shy birds that I rarely see well. They are thin on the ground where I live in the Pennines and extremely skittish. I hear them call more often than I see them, and when I do see them it is often a flight view, or of one hiding on the wrong side of a tree. But at Dunham Massey the habitat of ancient trees and ancient deer-grazed grassland seems to be perfect and supports a few breeding pairs. Being a National Trust property it also gets lots of visitors so the woodpeckers seem to have become more habituated to humans. They are still skittish, and fly to the trees if anyone comes too close, but they seem to tolerate people a little closer than is usual. These photographs are of a juvenile female and an adult male. Males have a red moustache, which is black in females, and the colouration is even detectable when they are in barred juvenile plumage.
The juvenile with remarkably blue eyes, which will fade to white as she gets older and moults into adult plumage. She was feeding well on ants in the grassland with her father feeding nearby, and occasionally sharing the fruit of his labours with her.
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Tim
Your knowledge and photographic skills are awe inspiring, amazing and fabulous. 🙂
Many thanks indeed Lizzy. It is comments like that which spur me on to keep sending them to Mark.
I prefer the more subtle juvenile plumage, they used to appear on a bank near my Partridge pen that was crawling in ants.