lesser spotted woodpecker question

[vinnychameleon]

hi all
are these birds very rare or is it just their elusiveness? I have never seen one and it is the one bird i would love to see what kind of habitats do they inhabit? my wood is comprised of some very old trees with new growth in between them. The is alot of new growth birch with some evry old trees such as oaks and beech around this area. would my wood be suitable? and is there any way to encourage them to gardens??
thanks very much

[witham]

we have one visit our garden fairley regularly, there are lots of mature trees in the area, Oak, Willow, Beech, Hawthorn, Blackthorn, Silver Birch, Maple, Chestnut etc, it is often on our peanut and fat ball feeders but also the seed trays We do have a large bird box high up in our Oak tree but I'm not sure where it's actually nesting but its visits have recently got more frequent as if there could be young somewhere I put a few pics on here a while ago but incase you didn't see them here's some showing it on the different feeders to give you an idea of what they like but please excuse my photography I'm no expert and they were taken through a not too clean window

[Rob_D]

Hi vinnychameleon

Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers (LSW) are not exactly rare, but thinly spread and declining, so they are on the UK red list. BTO estimated "1400 to 2900 pairs in 2000, now probably an overestimate". They are hard to see, because they are small and generally keep to the tops of the trees.

They are much less likely to come to feeders than the Greater Spots (GSW) in Withams pictures, but apparently they sometimes go for fruit trees/or cherries.

Best ways to find LSW - in Feb-to-April listen for the drumming, but you need to distinguish from the much commoner GSW. They also make a pee-pee-pee call, which the GSW doesn't at all. Supposedly the LSW young make a racket too, probably at this time of year, but I've not heard that.

If you let me know where you are, might be able to suggest some places?

Rob

[kez]

I once did see a woodpecker that looked awfully small for a great but apart from that don't think I've ever seen one. In the winter we did have the great on the feeders on a few occasions. I reckon it could be lack of nesting places that is causing their decline, maybe the larger greats are pushing them out of territories.

[watsthat]

I`ve only seen one since I started bird watching. I have just completed 3 years of intense coverage of my local patch and never turned one up. I wouldn`t be surprised if I never picked another up but it`s down to luck really. The one I saw was high in a mature oak, small bird activity caused me to scan up through the tree and there it was, no bigger than a sparrow with black and white bars. A few seconds was all I got.

Pete

[Ferret]

I don’t know if it is just coincidence but the one pair and three singles I have seen over the last forty years where all on mature Oaks.

[witham]

ooops, Sorry just realised my mistake I've read the question properly now got the Lesser and Greater mixed up must have had one of my 'senior' moments

[Rob_D]

I guess they are quite "local" and don't move much outside their territories? In which case it's a matter of finding a patch and staking it out at the right time - ideally spring mornings from a good vantage point. You are much more likely to hear it drumming/calling first rather than just spotting one. But seeing the one that is drumming is not always easy!

The county bird clubs are a good source of information. You can search back through previous years sightings too for sites to try. Fatbirder birding facts Birding Resources by the Fat Birder has loads of links. Some of the counties have now put atlases online with the results of the BTO surveys just started e.g Herts http://www.hertsatlas.org.uk/2007/LS.shtml and Beds Bedfordshire Bird Atlas 2007-2011 (Lesser Spotted Woodp.). You can see just how sparse LSW now are and how much they disappeared by comparing with the 88-92 data.

[ChrisJB]

Marbury Country Park in Cheshire is a reliable site in spring I believe.

Regards, Chris

[RobinP]

There are at least two fairly reliable sites in Hertfordshire, I believe one has just produced some young but I don't know how many. As Rob_D says the best time to look is early Spring before the leaves are on the trees and listen for the brrrrrrrrrr noise of their drumming, a lot different to that of GSW, then scan up and down the trees through binocs. They do suffer from disturbance and maybe predation from GSW as do other hole-nesters so this may have hastened their decline.