Wild Green Woodpecker visits my garden

[PeterD]

Virtually every morning, at dawn, this bird feeds on my bird feeding station. Usually raiding the peanuts. Recently, he has started to visit in broad daylight raiding some ants nests. These birds are normally timid and would disappear on spotting someone - the yellow rump showing when the bird is in flight ( I have lots of such photos).

This bird tolerated me being reasonably close by for about 5 minutes.

It stops feeding and checks me out.

It can hear the camera shutter operating which unsettles it more.

Should I go?

No....it returns to the ant's nest and continues feeding.

There goes that noise again.

I shall leave the ants for another day.

It flew off before I could take another photo.

A little more about Woodpeckers: This article is a result of research on the shock resilience of the woodpecker when hammering into tree trunks.

This made me think about the eye lids of the woodpecker which I had thought strange but dismissed it. I found another image in my shoot which illustrates what I mean.

The eye lids are at approx. 45 degrees from normal. This adaption is clearly to avoid debris entering the eye when the drilling into tree trunks.

Hope you enjoy these

Best wishes

Peter

 

[Light Tower One]

I like 3 very much.......... Nice set of photos

 

[Cloggy]

Great pictures. We have a Green woodpecker who seems to visit a couple of time a year. All my photos are taken of it on the grass too!

 

[j9ksf]

Super shots of this timid but wonderful bird. Good colours and clarity.

 

[BillN_33]

look at the framing Peter - not as tight

and the composition - the placing of the bird in the frame

IMHO, if you do the images will be more attractive to look at

there are some good shots there - they need more space around them, because of the type of shots and resolution ..... plus a central position of the subject is normally never as attractive as one positioned more to the left or right

space above and below are also important - have a "play"

I always tend to express my opinion in the hope that it helps?

In lots of shots don't just "grab" the bird - look at the image

 

[derbydude]

Nice shots lucky you

 

[Tombomb]

Lucky to get so close, and interesting about the eyelids!