Return of the prodigal woodpecker

Richard Collins on the possibility that the great spotted has bred in Ireland

THERE is mounting evidence that one of Ireland’s ancient exiles has returned. The prodigal is no legendary wild goose but a chisel-billed carpenter. Although rumours that a pair of great spotted woodpeckers nested in the North in 2006 have not yet been substantiated, sightings of young birds this summer suggest that breeding has occurred.

The great spotted is the most common of the three woodpecker species nesting in Britain. The name is misleading: the bird has few spots and it’s only the size of a thrush. This black and white pied bird is easily recognised by its conspicuous white shoulder patches. Males have red markings on the head and under the tail.

Great spotteds bred here centuries ago. According to Gordon D’Arcy in Ireland’s Lost Birds, bones found in caves at two locations in Clare were dated to the early Christian period. O’Sullivan Beare, writing in the early 17th century, claimed that “the woodpecker is very common in Ireland. A bird of several colours, white, black, red ... longish tail, strong beak and hooked nails with which it can hollow out trees and build its nest in the hollow”.

However, woodpeckers don’t feature in Irish folklore, whereas they figure prominently in the traditions of countries in which they are found. D’Arcy thinks that our birds disappeared with the destruction of the last great forests in the 17th century; the loss of woodland lore at that time explains why they don’t feature in our folk tradition.

Woodpeckers were regular, but scarce, visitors to Ireland in the 19th and 20th centuries. In Ireland’s Birds, published in 1966, Robert Ruttledge noted that there had been 55 records of the great spotted. He mentions that the winter of 1949-50 “was marked by a visitation” of the bird. Similar mini-invasions have been recorded every few years since and 2008 looks like being an exceptional one for the species.

In the current issue of Wings, the quarterly magazine of BirdWatch Ireland, Dick Coombes writes of an “astonishing spread of at least 20 records” in 2008. Such numbers are not unprecedented — there were 29 sightings during the winter of 1968/69 — but this year’s total looks like being greater. More significantly, the records have a different pattern. In the past, woodpeckers were seen between September and April but 14 of this year’s records were between April and August. Both male and female woodpeckers advertise their presence by drumming on the barks of trees. Drumming was heard last April at two sites in Wicklow. In the same month, a male and female were seen chasing each other, classic woodpecker courting behaviour.

Hopes were high that breeding would be confirmed. Woodpeckers nest in holes in trees. They are relatively easy to find, as the birds can be seen entering and leaving the hole. However, searches of the Wicklow forests yielded nothing. Then, on July 25, BirdWatch was told of a woodpecker visiting a garden near Brittas, Co Dublin. It was a juvenile great spotted. Another youngster was found in Bray and two more elsewhere in the county.

Great spotted woodpeckers begin laying at the end of April and most young have left the nest by early July. That youngsters were seen in late July suggests that breeding took place here but Coombes does not leap to hasty conclusions. The birds could, just about, be visitors from abroad. Did they come from Britain? It seems unlikely. The great spotted population there has increased in recent years but British woodpeckers are notoriously sedentary. Although 47,000 great spotteds have been ringed, few were ringed as nestlings. Only 17 such birds were found subsequently, all but three within 20km of the nest; it seems that juvenile British woodpeckers are just as sedentary as their parents.

Scandinavian woodpeckers, however, are more adventurous. Their population erupts every few years, with birds heading south as far as Britain and Ireland. Almost all of the travellers are youngsters, forced to leave because of poor pine and spruce seed crops.

However, according to Coombes, no unusual woodpecker movements were recorded at the Falsterbo observatory in the south of Sweden this summer. It seems unlikely, therefore, that the birds seen here had come from Scandinavia.