Sunday 28 August 2011

Venus Pool - Green Woodpecker

The last few days have turned up three fantastic Shropshire birds, two of them County lifers. Having had three goes at the Chelmarsh Arctic Skua, I decided to 'pass' on improving my record shots of that one today and checked the Meres instead (I won't bore you with what I didn't see!) The Spotted Redshank remained at VP plus supporting cast of waders was an exact re-run of Saturday and they all remained distant.

I can't remember when I had a decent opportunity of 'feather detail' recently but all that was about to change with a juvenile Green Woodpecker strutting his stuff on a fence post in front of me! The whole sequence lasted a minute or so - here are the highlights.....

The arrival.....





A bit of a fidget followed by a game of peekabooo....









Showing off his greenery...





Before building up to a raucous crescendo of call....





Then gone!