Green Woodpecker Chicks

14 Aug

Pretty much straight after photographing the great spotted woodpecker chicks, I stumbled across an opportunity to document some green woodpecker chicks as well. It’s not uncommon to hear green woodpeckers calling in my local cemetery but this time they seemed a lot more vocal than usual. I soon discovered they were the contact calls from juveniles, not long fledged from their nest.

I returned with a camera and spent a bit of time observing the woodpeckers and getting some shots. There were three juveniles and an adult female. Being youngsters they were far less timid than the adults and at times they got very close to me. At one point I was sitting on the ground next to a bench, not really very well hidden, when one of the youngsters landed at the base of a small tree no more than 15 metres away. I was sure that if I so much as tilted my camera towards the bird it would immediately fly off, so I stayed still. It became clear after a while that if the chick could see me then it wasn’t in the slightest bit bothered about my presence. It began preening itself, stretching, eating any ants that wandered within tongue-shot and even started to doze off at one point. I was not only able to take a load of photos but I also had enough time to capture some video footage as well. I even managed to get up and leave, without the bird noticing, once my knees started aching and a heat warning appeared on my camera after prolonged video recording.

I didn’t spend a massive amount of time photographing the woodpeckers, only a few late afternoons/early evenings, for an hour or so at a time. I just seemed to be in the right place at the right time on numerous occasions. Another one of those moments was when I was taking photos of a youngster on the side of a tree, when a second juvenile landed directly opposite it on the other side. It was only there for a few short seconds but I was already exactly where I needed to be in order to capture it.

Another, right place, right time moment was when I managed to get some video of them in a bird bath. I had already seen one woodpecker land in the bird bath briefly and then fly off. Worried that I might have missed my opportunity I set the camera up and framed the shot, only for the bird to land back. It had a long bath which was eventually interrupted by a second woodpecker, spooking it off and having a bath itself. I put that and some of the other footage together in a video which can be found at the bottom of the page.