Woodpecker breeding season
Busy times for our woodpeckers
Regular visitors to our garden are the great spotted woodpeckers. A beautiful sight with their pied black and white plumage and a red patch on the lower belly. Males and young birds also have red markings on the head. Currently they are nesting in holes in big trees nearby. Their nests are mere holes excavated in living or dead trees, unlined apart from wood chips. The typical clutch is four to six glossy white eggs. Both parents incubate the eggs, feed the chicks, and keep the nest clean. Enjoy the pictures of this busy period in the life of our local woodpeckers.
Foodcolletion
Both parents collect food whereby they dig for beetle larvae from trees or catch small invertebrates like ants, spiders and small beetles.
Feeding
Everything is flown to the nest where the noisy chicks anxiously wait for more and more food, they seem insatiable. As a result they have grown fast close to fledging.
Out-growing
After fledging the parents will keep on feeding their young for another month. The youngsters look bigger and fatter than their parents by now.
