Читать книгу The Times A Year in Nature Notes - Derwent May - Страница 44

GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKERS are drumming in the trees. They find a trunk or bough with resonant qualities, and hammer at it with their powerful beak with great speed. The vibrating note sometimes sounds like a creaking branch, and goes on for about five seconds. It can be heard a long way off, and neighbouring male woodpeckers will answer each other, the second one often beginning before the first has finished. Each bird is challenging the other not to invade its territory. They can occasionally be found using a metal plate on a telephone pole as a sounding board: it does not seem to harm their beak. Recently one was seen at a racecourse drumming on a megaphone attached to a pole. The megaphone was even pointing at another great spotted woodpecker, which was hammering more feebly on a tree a hundred yards away. Great spotted woodpeckers are black and white birds with a blood-red smudge under the tail and the males also have a red patch at the back of the head.

Another loud spring announcement that can now be heard in the woods is the ‘cork-cock’ note of the cock pheasants. They make the call with their long tail pressed to the ground and their head held high, and follow it by energetically flapping their wings. The buzzing sound of the flapping wings can also be heard clearly in the silence of the woods, and they too answer each other.