Derwent May

Birds are still very quiet in the countryside, apart from robins, which are now singing steadily everywhere. What would we do without robins in the winter? Luckily, there are plenty of them, not only on Christmas cards.

One other bird that is also quite noticeable now is the great spotted woodpecker. It has a loud “chack” call that can often be heard in the woods at present. It likes to make this call sitting right on the pinnacle of a fir tree, so that the sound carries. It looks very fine and fearless up there, with its bold black-and-white markings and the bright red stain under its tail. In the winter it will challenge other great spotteds that come into its territory. In spring, it can sometimes be seen fighting fiercely with intruders, so that you may wonder if that red stain is not actually blood.

Its “song” — the sound that attracts females and warns off males — begins early in the new year, and my impression is that it is much more commonly heard in January now than it used to be. But this is not vocal music. It is a loud drumming produced by the bird’s stout beak being hammered rapidly on a dead branch or trunk, or sometimes on a metal plate on a telegraph pole. The hammering is so rapid that it can sound like a tree creaking rather than a run of distinct blows.

The first time you hear it in the year it always comes as a surprise, and you wonder if you have heard right. Then it comes again, and you know you did. However, there are slight, individual variations in the drumming of each bird. A female can recognise her mate by the sound he makes.

These woodpeckers feed mainly on insects that live under bark or inside dead wood. They get at them with blows from their beak, after which they lick them up with their long tongue. In winter they also crack nuts, wedging them in a crevice in a tree trunk. In recent years they have started hanging on peanut feeders, terrorising the smaller birds who want a look-in — but people generally feel themselves lucky if they can attract one.

They are not regular ground-feeders like the green woodpeckers, which eat ants, but they will come down. A few winters ago, I was surprised to find one right in the middle of a flock of redwings which were feeding in a field. There have also been reports of them eating rotten apples lying under a tree. So if you want a great spotted woodpecker in your garden, let the windfalls lie.

What to look out for

Birders Parties of sanderlings and turnstones on sandy shores, the sanderlings scurrying in and out of the waves in search of food

Twitchers Black-eared kite, Cley, Norfolk; penduline tit, Rainham Marshes, Kent; gyr falcon, Fetlar, Shetland; Ross’s gull, Loch Caolisport, Argyll

Details from Birdline, 0906 8700222 (60p a min) www.birdingworld.co.uk; www.rspb.org.uk

derwent.may@thetimes.co.uk