Early autumn altercation

I have just watched the most extraordinary drama play out on my lawn.

I spotted a squirrel while I was eating my breakfast; it was foraging for places to hide nuts and such, and I thought, that's the first squirrel I have seen for ages - it must be nearly Autumn...

Anyway when I looked out again five minutes later, there was an enormous green woodpecker on the lawn.  It was digging about in the grass.  I've never seen a woodpecker do this before - it was hopping about in large bounding leaps, and wherever it landed it was having a bit of a dig with it's whacking great vicious-looking beak.  I got the binoculars out and watched it for a while.  It's bright red head was easy to keep track of, and I could see all the spotted markings down it's sides.  And then I wondered where the squirrel was.  So I swung the binoculars around a bit and caught sight of it sitting on the bench under the apple tree, watching the woodpecker's every move.

All at once, the squirrel did a sort of St Vitus Dance - just like the mad-half-hours cats sometimes have when they chase their tails and go into all sorts of strange contortions.  It was flipping over itself and making little runs before leaping backwards into the air and falling over it's own tail.  And then quite suddenly it made a run right at the woodpecker and jumped on it!  All four legs splayed out in the air and landed right on the woodpecker's back!

The woodpecker was taken completely by surprise, and it flew a few feet (I got a sight of those beautiful wings) before landing awkwardly.  It hopped about a bit more and the squirrel retreated back to the bench.  The squirrel was not happy however.  It kept wriggling about between the bench struts in little nervous spurts.  I put the binoculars down because I wanted to see the whole stage.  The woodpecker did some more hopping, and then it started digging again.  And as soon as it started digging, the squirrel made another attempt!   And I realised that the woodpecker must have been after the squirrel's nuts!  Or at least, the squirrel was completely persuaded that he was....the squirrel chased the woodpecker round in a circle and then the woodpecker, harrassed beyond belief, flew up into the apple tree.  The squirrel sat on the corner of the bench and shouted at it for all it was worth!  And the woodpecker, who had clearly been hoping for a peaceful breakfast, gave up, and flew away.

The squirrel then behaved in the most bizarre fashion.  It took up the St Vitus dance again, first between the bench struts, then all over the lawn.  In it's mad meanderings it took in all the places that the Woodpecker had been digging, and stopped and had a look in each one.  I can only imagine that the St Vitus Dance was an attempt to screen from other animals where exactly the nuts were hidden.  When it had checked all the places the woodpecker had dug, it went and sat back on the bench.  I wish I knew whether any of it's nuts were left, or whether it had to start it's gathering all over again!

Has anyone else ever seen a squirrel attack a woodpecker?  Or a woodpecker stealing a squirrel's nuts?  I'd be interested...