The Lesser Spotted Woodpecker
A silhouette of the male landing with food for the nest … tricky shooting conditions against the bright sky
There are three types of woodpeckers in the UK. The Green, the Great Spotted and the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker. The first two are quite common and much larger than the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker. It may be small, but the Lesser Spotted is something special though …
The ‘lesser’ in its name refers to its size. It is similar in appearance to the Great Spotted Woodpecker with its white spots on black feathers. But it is much smaller at about the size of a sparrow. The ‘lesser spotted’ name is also appropriate today for another reason. It is quite literally less likely to be spotted. Not only is it small, but it enjoys being high up on tree trunks, so it is hard to spot, and most importantly it is a rather rare bird in the UK nowadays.
A male in early April - scouting for a suitable dead tree to create a nest in
The British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) suggests only a tiny population of around 600 pairs remain in the UK, and that estimate is almost 10 years old. There has been a quite dramatic reduction in the number of Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers over the last 30-40 years (with a 90% reduction in breeding pairs). Not surprisingly it is on the UK Red List for Bird conservation.
The reasons for the decline are unknown, but it is speculated that it is connected to loss of habitat and competition from the larger Great Spotted Woodpecker. The Lesser Spotted requires rotting tree trunks to create nests. Its beak is not as strong as the other woodpeckers’ and the softer wood of dying trees makes drilling nest holes easier. The reduction of open woodland and increased maintenance of gardens, parks and woods with the removal of died and rotting tree trunks can have had an impact on its population.
A female next to the newly drilled nest hole
A strong hold – if you can call it that for such a rare bird – is Dartmoor woodlands. As such, I was keen to see if I could spot the lesser spotted. This quest started in February with a bit of research, and a few reconnaissance trips to a couple of promising areas. I talked to locals and narrowed the area to investigate further based on previous years’ sightings. The optimal time to spot them would be from the start of the nesting season with the excavation of a nest in a tree trunk.
The female leaving the nest with waste stuck to wood chips
My daily trips to my target wood commenced in early April, and one early morning at just past 6am I spotted the familiar flight pattern of a woodpecker. Two landed on a dead tree. Moving slowly closer – bingo! – these were definitely not the larger Great Spotted but rather my target, evidenced from the lack of a red patch on the belly and from the size of these beautiful tiny peckers.
The male busy excavating the nest
Carefully keeping my distance over repeat visits to the same area a pattern of behaviour became evident, and I managed to locate the nesting target, a small hole high up in the dead tree. Over the next few days this pair of Lesser Spotted were busy drilling, enlarging and preparing the hole for nesting.
Change of guards: The female arrives with food for the nest whilst the male is about to depart
In these situations, the Nikon 800mm PF lens comes into its own. Combine it with a high-resolution camera such as the Nikon Z8 or the Z9 and it is perfect for observing nest activity at a respectable distance without disturbing the birds. Good quality images are possible even with significant cropping giving you an equivalent focal distance of more than 1200mm. A trickier problem to overcome is the difficult lighting situation when photographing a nest hole high up on a tree trunk against a bright sky. It is easy to blow out the sky whilst exposing for the birds. The contrasts can also make the image less than optimal. Combine this with the challenge of images taken in early morning or late afternoon with poor light, and careful post-processing was required to balance the images for both background and the birds.
The male leaving the nest
It has been truly rewarding to observe these rare woodpeckers over several weeks and it easily makes up for the alarm clock regularly going off at 5am 😉
The male removing waste from the nest