Today I finally saw another Lesser Spotted Woodpecker on the patch, a lovely male near Piddly Pond that showed for quite a long time as it fed, seemingly oblivious to my presence. My only ever record of one this year is a heard-only at Pages Acre and that was the first time one had made my notebook since the pair I was monitoring fledged their young at the end of last May.
Lesser Peckers are amongst my all time favourite birds; I will never tire of watching them and feel very priveleged to have a good population on my patch. I find it amazing how they succeed in making themselves virtually undetectable apart from during their 'noisy season' which lasts from late February till early April. In fact, in this period of time they can be very obvious and you wonder how on earth you've not been seeing them for months on end.
