Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Woodpecker in Finsbury Park
My son and I heard and spotted a woodpecker at work near the river in Finsbury Park today. Never seen one before!
Tags for Forum Posts: wildlife, woodpecker
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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I had a whole list of Kenneth Williams reposts to this but my flabber has never been so gasted.
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Permalink Reply by Johnny on
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There's a woodpecker in Markfield Park this year, not yet seen but hearing it regularly.
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Permalink Reply by David Deane on
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Since we're discussing birds, can anyone help me with this one? my wife saw it on Duckett's common the other day
quality isn't great as it's from her phone.
looks like an albino crow to me (or perhaps an albino magpie)
I@m not very good at htis - how do i get a picture into the post?
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Image179.jpg, 16 KB
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Permalink Reply by Madeline on
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It looks like a black headed gull.
As for photo posting, when you're replying run your cursor over the symbols at the top of the box to the second one, image. Then follow the instructions.
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This is indeed a Black-headed Gull. It's an adult in breeding plumage, with a dark hood – that is, covering the front part of the head and not the whole head, so perhaps it should have been called Black-hooded Gull. Although even that would have been inaccurate, as the hood is not black (though it looks so from a distance) but dark chocolate brown; you can see this at close range in good light, and a white crescent surrounding each eye. Furthermore, this common London bird is 'black-headed' only in its adult breeding plumage; in winter it loses the hood and has only a small smudgy dark patch behind the eye and an even smaller smudge just above the eye. These graceful small gulls are most common in winter, and are often on Ducketts Common, sometimes in large numbers. It has a lighter, more buoyant flight than the two large gulls we see regularly here (Herring Gull and Lesser Black-backed Gull) and they can be distinguished at long range by the white stripes along the front edge of each wing, contrasting with the pale grey of the rest of the wing and the small area of black on the rear of the wingtips. Young birds have no dark hood and at first have a lot of brown on the wings and back, which they lose over the next year: I took this picture of a first-winter bird at Finsbury Park lake, where there are often large flocks in winter,impossible to miss as they all fly up and round and then squabble for food when people are feeding the birds with bread, with a raucous chorus of harsh calls.
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imm BH Gull F PArk JPeg.jpg, 323 KB
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Just re-read my quickly written post and realised the bit about distinguishing Black-headed Gulls from Herring Gulls and Lesser Black-backed Gulls is ambiguous; just to clarify, it's the Black-headed Gulls that have a white stripe along the front of each wing.
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Thanks Jonathan, and thanks Madeline too.
I was just logging on to thank Madeline when I found your message. I have to say that the pictures i found on wikipedia/rspb site didn't quite match what was in the picture, and it wasn't a very good quality one and I didn't see it myself.
Excellent to have such detail in the reply, the website descriptions are often not quite as thorough as that, and fail to distinguish between the different seasons very well, which often leaves me umming and aahing about what I might have seen. Surprised that they've decided winter is over so soon (although we are in March now I suppose), but who can fathom they ways of beasts?
Edit: Jonathan, after a quick google, I shall have to try and hunt out one of your books - which do you recommend for a novice?
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Re: greater spotted woodpecker sightings in Markfield Park, we have one in our garden on Talbot Road, slightly north of Markfield Park and right in the middle of the Tottenham Gyratory. We only sighted it occasionally until a coconut was hung near the house for the birds during the recent cold spell - since then it's been a regular visitor. We often hear it even if we don't see it.
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David, if you (or anyone else!) would like a bargain, I can sell you a copy of the most appropriate of my books (now out of print but still ideal for novices and beyond too), my BBC field guide, Birds: A guide book to British birds, at a greatly reduced price, £7 (published at £14.99). It's packed with information and well over 1,000 colour illustrations by leading bird artists. I would even throw in a copy of the 3-hour video that accompanies it, but suspect that like most people nowadays you don't have a VCR! If you are interested, please contact me with your address via my email address:
jonathan@jonelph.myzen.co.uk and I can fix up a delivery to save postage.
All the best, Jonathan
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Permalink Reply by linka on
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just observing a greater spotted woodpecker on the next-door neighbour's apple tree in the post-storm damp. First time I've ever seen one here (mid-Gardens)
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