Great Spotted Woodpecker
Dendrocopus major
  |
|
Distribution Britain 1,959 (-4.4%) Ireland 0
Numbers breeding: Britain 27,500 Ireland 0 European status: 3,700,000 (1% in Britain and Ireland) British population trend: increasing strongly (+185% CBC){+161%} How likely are you to record it? 1265 squares (28.2%) Ranked 36 |
About two hundred years ago something happened to cause this woodpecker to retract from the periphery of its breeding range. The birds were lost from Scotland, where the Caledonian pine forests had been their stronghold, and from most of northern England and parts of Wales. They became uncommon even in some southern counties too. It has been suggested that intensive woodland management with dead wood being taken for fuel might have, at least in part, been the cause. None, of course, breed in Ireland although bones found indicate they were around in early Christian times — possible lost with the final forest clearances in the 17th century. They started to make good their losses in the late 1860s and re-colonised Scotland in 1887 (Berwickshire). The birds spread quickly with the Caledonian pine re-occupied before 1900 and the very north of Caithness, Skye and Mull before the end of the 1960s. This is a bird which seems to have thrived in the main parts of its range recently. Additional dead wood caused by Dutch Elm disease and the use of garden bird feeders may have helped a lot and we have not had any very cold and freezing winters for some years. The big increase in CBC indices (179% on farmland and 89% on woodland between 1972 and 1996) and significant 36% increase on the BBS sites in five years are very dynamic. A species on the up and up.
The following Bird On! picture is available:
Great Spotted Woodpecker (35mm Colour Slide by Roger Tidman)
The following Bird On! sketch is available:
From
The
State of the Nations Birds
Copyright © 2000 by Chris Mead