We haven’t seen a woodpecker at the bird feeders recently so I was surprised to see a juvenile clinging to the fat-balls this morning. I don’t ever remember seeing a juvenile in the garden before.
It flew off and climbed up the trunk of the crab apple. It seems keen on exploring, perching on top of a garden light and pecking at it, then flying to the runner bean poles and investigating those.
This afternoon it came back with an adult male.
The male has a patch of red on the back of his head, the juvenile has the red cap. He fed the youngster – which seemed to be managing quite well by itself – until a wood pigeon landed on the top of the feeding pole, scaring it away. The male continued feeding for a few minutes. We’re soon going to run out of fat-balls again at this rate.