you know what it's like, you've had your saturday supper, nicely washed down with magical red sanity juice, then it's clearing up time, filling the dishwasher and putting out any rubbish. You go to the back door and right there is a 'ground pecker' tearing holes into an old tree stump. Hand's full, you watch as she rips out chunks of wood. Then she picks something out and, yum yum, her supper too. She continues tearing into the wood. You know you have to do this, so putting the trash down, you fetch the camera, and slowly slowly turn the handle and silently try to unstick the door, must fix that one day, Slowly, you ease the lens through the gap, awkward angle, high-ish shutter to reduce shake, ISO to the max !, it is late evening.

You get a few pics, not great, too dark for this really. But you don't see GSW on the ground that often, and want a record. Here it is.

If want to see ground-peckers of course, that'll be the Green ones, they're fond of ants and often raid nests. Sadly up here, in Scotland, we don't get these, so have to made do with this sort unusual event.

well I seem to have got this chaps attention, hope he approves

now I've often wondered if I can see myself in the reflection in a birds eye. Well this is as close at it gets. I can see the camo screen I'm hiding behind in the full size image.

had I got this website together with more alacrity I probably could not have posted any 'pecker images for, although I have a good number of GSW pictures, they're all totally .......

for me it was another of those 'one day' birds, as in 'I'll get some pictures one day'. They are so shy. I hear them, I will stalk as close as possible, peer up through the branches, and often rain, and just before I can get an angle they're off, usually to settle nicely in sight but miles away. When one flies close it will invariably settle around the back of a tree, and then of course climb out of sight so it can re-appear 10 metres above (or below!) where you're expecting it might, and by the time you adjust there are leaves in the way .... and then... it's off.

I am not the first person to experience this of course. Thomas Bewick (1826) says "It creeps with great ease in all directions upon the branches of trees, and is with difficulty seen, as it instantly avoids the sight behind a branch, where it remains concealed". I'm convinced their parents teach them just how to piss photographers about from the moment they hatch.

anyway, that 'one day' came, sitting quietly and hoping a generous safe distance from where I knew they nested I caught sight of mum with her kid flitting about, she was leading him around, he dutifully paying attention as she explained just how to treat photographers. Despite not being in a hide however this time they were mostly oblivious of my presence..... perhaps she was preoccupied showing her child where food really comes from.

Anyway, this is mum, remember the colours for ID? no red head markings is a female, males have red patch to back of head, a red forehead is a juvenile.

one of the joys of the highlands of Scotland (no it isn't the weather) is the clean air, and the abundance of lichens growing on trees this allows

here they provide a soft background palette of pastel green for mum's patterns of monochrome and pink (wasn't there an album by Caravan about that)

in nice green canopy light this juvenile has learned the leaning back against your tail posture characteristic of woodpeckers and is examining the bark closely. He still seems to have doubts about the whole 'bash your face into it' bit tho'. No doubt headbanging will come.

he's moved here to get a better view of his mum,

and seems to be thinking something along the lines of '.... all this looking at tree bark stuff is fine but where's my bloody dinner'

"....try looking for it yourself",

they are only perhaps a couple of metres apart here, so obviously mum and child

You will often hear that it is the Reed Warbler that serves as the most common host for the cuckoo's parasitism. Farther south this is true, but it does vary a lot geographically. Up here in the highlands of Scotland it is most likely to be the meadow pipit.

This lady has chosen a 33 keV power cable, strung over an expansive area of rough heath, rich in nesting meadow pipits, as a vantage point. From here she can overlook what’s going on, and who is nesting where. It is a good spot, she knows it, and so do I, because she has used it before. In fact I have spotted her here a few times, usually when I’ve not had the camera with me! So I’ll have to stake the location out a bit and hope she'll turn up again. There is one 'good' location to do this, a rise that is almost level with the cables. This gives a decent background rather than bright sky.

After a few unsuccessful stakeouts she turns up, but she decides, as so many birds seem to do when you want a photo, to settle well along the cable. It is too far out really, but I snap a few anyway. I’ve been trying to capture her for a few weeks now, and this turns out to be all I’ll get this year. A least I had the good sense to take a few poor ones as insurance.

I watch her for quite a while, hoping against experience, she’ll move closer. Soon she is noticed by others and, in an attempt to explain nicely that the residents would like her to ‘fark-orf’ a pair of pipits start mobbing her. This goes on for a long time and succeeds in disturbing her so much she flies farther off. She settles onto one end of a cross-beam of the wooden ‘H-type’ pylons. Seconds later a pipit settles at the other end. They ‘eye’ each other. It’s actually amusing to watch them both. Regrettably all of this happens out of the effective range of my 500mm. I can watch them through my binoculars – but it’s sadly too far out for any pictures.