Woodpecker Damage

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I was contacted by a friend yesterday about some interesting woodpecker behaviour (thank you Anette!).

My friend volunteers with the local John Strutt Conservation group at Hartley a couple of miles from us. Volunteers have been putting up nest boxes with metal reinforcing around the access holes. 5 or 6 nest boxes were erected and within a week three have been attacked. It looks like the work of the Great Spotted Woodpecker.


The mystery is why are they doing this.? It is common during the nesting season to see boxes raided. Woodpeckers often enlarge the holes and pluck out fledglings or eggs, but at this time of the year what could be their motivation?  These are new boxes and are not infested with rot or insects. What on earth is going on? If there is anyone out there with any bright ideas I would love to hear from you!

Whilst on the subject of local news I was incensed to hear of somebody who recently bought a house in the area who didn't like the rookery in their garden as the noise was "annoying". The householder employed some local men to shoot all the birds on the roost and then employed a tree surgeon to cut off all the "V" shaped branches to remove the possibility of new nests being built.  Quite apart from the fact that this is probably not legal under the new shooting rules is shows a staggering lack of appreciation for the natural world. There is a lot of educating to be done!

Diary
Its still raining! I note that the international Climate Change Conference in Glasgow this week has been affected by delegates being unable to get there because of trains being cancelled because of flooding. No irony there then! This is a milestone blog - number 200 of the year so far! I am trying to keep going and do the full year.

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