Green Woodpecker fight.

[ricwine]

We are surrounded by woods on two sides here. And Green Woodpeckers are a daily visitor to the garden and the local estate edge.

We also get Great Spotted Woodpecker even more often, several times a day at the birdfeeders.

With the breeding season the Greens are a bit scarce. But the last few weeks the immaculate call of theres or 'yaffle' can be heard a few times a day. In an arc around the woodland edges here. So I know that this is GWP territiory. Looking out of the window this luchtime I saw 2 GPW on the lawn. One was hidden by a see saw but i could get glimpses of it. I thought they were feeding and then i noticed that one of the birds was displaying. He was low down to the ground but his wings were spread out and he was squaring up with the other bird. The opposite bird was elongating his neck and stretching it from side to side. Think of a swan or a goose intertwining necks in a courtship dance?. So this went on for a few minutes. Then they seemed to start sparing with there long beaks. And were thrusting at each other beak o beak. Kind of like 'fencing' competitors slugging it out. the one who had being bending its neck then flew up at the other. And they both spooked and flew off. At first i thought i was watching a romantic'' mating dance. But by the end thought it was a fight over territory ( my back garden ).

So we had ; wing display, neck fluting, beak thrusting. One was defo a male and I am sure the other was a male about 75%. But it was hard cos they were a little distant and it was behind the seesaw. What were they doing. They were both big and fully grown i would say.

thanks Richard

[ricwine]

This seems to suggest that they were fighting it out. 2 males with my garden as the prize.

ANTAGONISTIC BEHAVIOUR OF GREEN WOODPECKER Picus Viridus

[Naturenutz]

Very interesting,a rare sight to see it seems.