A woodpecker, in celebration of Helena

I've had a deliberately lazy day on my own, since Helena has gone to Dorset for a well deserved break with our friend Tess.

The weather has been not only overcast but actually very misty, with the hilltops opposite us above Butterow hardly visible. I spent some time just looking out at the birds after my attention was drawn by the sweet murmurings of a large flock of goldfinches who paid a swooping visit. They are some of my favourite birds and I hadn't seen them in such numbers for many months.

The goldfinches didn't come too close and I noticed that the birdfeeders needed filling, so I went out to attend to my avian nurturing duties. On my return to my study, I looked out again to see if they had noticed but they didn't re-appear in numbers. There longtailed tits, blue tits, a nuthatch, a dunnock, a couple of robins as well as the usual magpies and crows. Yesterday the heron, which I blipped last week returned to another perch in our ash tree, but heard me opening the patio door and flew away too quickly for me.

But I did manage to be prepared for this woodpecker who flew across the garden and went onto this rather inelegant pole in the neighbours garden, which it often visits to check the lie of the land. Usually it will then make an approach for the suet in one of our feeders, and it duly did so. I tried to film it feeding, but it was too shaded and obscured by small branches of the rhus tree.

So I've chosen the woodpecker on the pole as I want to blip one today for Woodpeckers, who is going to blip her one hundredth consecutive blip today. I am really pleased and proud of her since she joined us all here, and I think she brings a good dose of humour and her unique view of the world to our community. I'm intrigued as to what she'll blip today, down in deepest Dorset, or possibly from the seashore, where they might have gone to play.


Helena, aka Woodpeckers

Young woodpecker being fed

Woodpecker at the feeder