Black Woodpecker?

I think you misunderstood my intention for posting here. I’m not a birdwatcher. My knowledge is limited to the most common birds and extends only as far as knowing that the bird I’m looking at in my garden has blue and yellow feathers, is small and so is probably a blue tit. If it’s large with light grey feathers and is sitting on my windowsill at work, it's a pigeon. However, I can’t tell the difference between a pigeon and a collared dove or a wood pigeon.

So when I see a bird I've not seen before and I like the look of it, I try to find out about it. My search said this it being a black woodpecker was impossible, I believe that. I believe what I saw is not a black woodpecker. I’m just trying to find an answer to what it was. After your reply, I happily persuaded myself I was looking at a juvenile spotted woodpecker and was delighted. Except the images of juveniles didn’t fit with what I saw.

I’m not saying you’re wrong; I’m not saying I saw a black woodpecker. I saw a bird that looks like one but I know isn’t. If it’s a starling, I’m happy. If it’s something else, I’m happy. Im certainly not reporting that I’ve seen a bird I couldn’t possibly have seen. Why would I do that?

But thank you for responding.

Hi Laurie,

First off it would be worth changing your user name rather than using your email address as these are open forums and it could lead to you getting unwanted emails.

If you could get a photo of your bird it would be really helpful. It would be incredibly unusual for it to be a Black Woodpecker and it's very, very unlikely it would make its way under it's own steam to Cheshire. They are none migratory and fairly 'sedentary' in bird terms and are a old forest/woodland expert- so if it is one it would either be an accidental import - in freight or an escaped aviary bird. They are also very big - think crow size

From Birds of Wiltshire (1887) by the Rev Alfred Charles Smith, Rector of Yatesbury


I think myself singularly happy in claiming the Black Woodpecker as a record for Wiltshire.

I have never been able to assent to the verdict of those who have pronounced all the recorded specimens in Great Britain as mistakes or impositions.

I cannot, and I do not, believe that all our older ornithologists were so mistaken or deceived, and, on looking over long lists of instances given on what seems to be excellent authority, I feel that Picus martius has occasionally appeared in England, perhaps more frequently in former years than of late.

At all events, the single specimen I adduce is now in Mr. James Rawlence's collection at Bulbridge, in the parish of Wilton, and that gentleman received it from Mr. Samuel Pope, then of Kingston Deverill Farm, who assured Mr. Rawlence it was killed while they were shooting rooks in Longleat Park.

I regret that I cannot give the exact date, but it was some years ago, and it was sent to be stuffed by Mr. King, the well-known bird-stuffer at Warminster, now unhappily deceased, or he might have supplied this and other desired particulars.

The Black Woodpecker is much larger than all the other European species and is entirely black in colour, the top of the head only excepted, which is of a rich blood-red.

It is a strong powerful bird, and is common in northern Europe, and found sparingly in the fir forests of Germany and Switzerland.

When I was in Norway in 1850, I was so fortunate as to fall in with it in the great forest of the Glommen, and shot it as it was ascending the trunk of a fir tree.

There were two in company, and I followed them as they flew screaming through the forest, but I never saw birds fly more heavily, or with such apparent exertion and such clumsy motion as these.

It was surprising, too, with what loud-sounding taps they hammered with their powerful beaks on the bark of the trees they were ascending, and I could well understand how they gained the Norwegian name of Spill-Kraka - 'Splinter Crow' - from the mass of splinters always to be found at the foot of the tree where they carry on their labours.

In France, it is Le Pic Noir; in Germany, Schwarzspecht; in Italy, Picchio Corvo.

I don't make any comment on the latest 'sighting' in Cheshire of a black woodpecker.

The prevailing scientific view seems to be that black woodpeckers are unlikely to wander over from the continent because they are averse to flying over water, particularly the sea.

Some while ago, I published (on Kindle) an e-book on the black woodpecker which focused on the exhaustive research of the late Richard Fitter who explored alleged sightings in Britain.

For English counties, his tally of 'occurrences' was as follows:

Berkshire: 4
Buckinghamshire: 1
Cheshire:1
Cornwall:1
Derbyshire:1
Devon:5
Dorset:4
Essex:1
Gloucestershire:2
Hampshire:7
Herefordshire:8
Hertfordshire:2
Isle of Wight:1
Kent:1
Lancashire:1
Lincolnshire:1
London:1
Middlesex: 4
Norfolk:3
Northamptonshire:1
Nottinghamshire: 2
Rutland:1
Shropshire:1
Somerset:4
Suffolk:5
Surrey:3
Sussex:1
Wiltshire:1
Warwickshire:1
Worcestershire:2
Yorkshire:9


Most of them he dismissed as mistaken, zoo escapees or fraudulent, but he concluded that a few were authentic.

Let the debate continue!

Hmmmmm
Black Woodpecker... Feeder.... baseball bat...

Feeder still standing?

S

beautyofbirds.com/.../

https://www.surfbirds.com/mb/Features/woodpecker-firsts.html

Two articles in links. First article about Black Woodpeckers.

Second article about the possibility and feasibility of new and first time new species of Woodpeckers in the UK. Even though Woodpeckers don’t normally migrate across oceans and the sea.

Hi-

as a throwaway - my best birding buddy found his first BW in a wood in Holland- he heard what sounded like someone hitting a tree with a baseball bat- he followed the sound....

:)

I'd never heard of red headed starlings before, so here are some pictures to compare with what OP saw.

https://www.irishgardenbirds.ie/2017/06/29/starlings-orange-crowned-nectar-hunters/

I have to say it doesn't fit with OP's description of 'mohawk' though.