MALE WOODPECKER ON FEEDING POST. AT LAST.

Click on any image to enlarge.

Forgive the background to these shots won't you? (I can't help it if the recreation ground behind our house was condemned afer the summer floods, can I? Atually, I know a little more about this recreation ground than the powers that be would like, but I can't let on here....)

I took these photographs not from the hide, 12' away from the post, but from inside the house, 80' from the post, through double glazing, in a blue funk, so to speak.

Note the lil' beggar's clawed feet - two claws facing forward, and two back, unlike most birds with three forward and one back, which is also unlike the swift - all four forward! Note also the pronged tail, comprising of VERY stiff tail feathers, which it'll use as a support - to brace itself against the trunk or branch of the tree its on.

I know the male has visited the feeding post I erected months ago, but possibly only once or twice.

I wish I was in the hide to take these, but I now have new resolve to take a big mug of tea into the hide, and wait for this very nice bird to make a guest of honour appearance once more!