View From The Shed by Volunteer Shaun - THE HEADBANGER'S BALL

THE HEADBANGERS’ BALL

Some cartoon characters from decades past have stood the test of time far greater than others. Disney’s Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck remain instantly recognisable to generations of fans, as do the classic Warner Brothers stable including Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck and the Tasmanian Devil. But can you recall Betty Boop? Her star is dimming as the years go by, as is that of Popeye the Sailor. I suspect fewer still would remember Felix the Cat even though he was once as popular as all the others named above.

And what about Woody Woodpecker? He was a television staple of my boyhood but seems to have been lost in today’s merchandise-heavy market. Even at a young age though I knew that Woody wasn’t like any woodpecker I’d ever seen. I knew the Great Spotted Woodpeckers that we saw in the local woods and the Green variety that prodded on the council putting green but Woody definitely wasn’t one of those. Back then I simply put it down to artistic licence. I should have realised that he was a product of American artists so they would naturally use their native birds as templates.

Woody’s design was based on a Pileated Woodpecker, the largest of the species found in America, although his call (and if you know the cartoons, it’s unforgettable) more closely resembles that of an Acorn Woodpecker. Sadly, these chaps never turn up in the Dearne Valley (or Britain at all) so we can’t check. 

But we do get some around here. It’s not unusual to see the largest of our Woodies, the Great Spotted Woodpecker, in the bird garden at Old Moor. They love to hang from the peanut feeders there. Then there’s the Green Woodpecker. We usually see and hear them flying over the reserve but I’ve also seen the odd one probing for ants in the lawns.

There is also a third but you’ll have to be very lucky to see it. You certainly won’t spot one at Old Moor. Superficially it looks like a smaller, paler version of our normal Great Spotted. You might think you’ve seen one and misidentified one as the Greater variety but, trust me; there’s no mistaking a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker. Their key feature is that, by woodpecker terms, they’re tiny. When they first see one, people are usually surprised by how small they are - about the same size as a Sparrow. So the chances of you confusing it with a Great Spotted are slim to none. But then again, your chances of ever seeing one at all are getting perilously close to nil.

A recently published nationwide study has found that the Lesser Spot is in the direst of trouble. Despite extensive surveying, only nine nests were found in England this year. From these, only 12 chicks made it to fledging. So 18 parents had 12 young over the whole country. Even my dodgy grasp of biology and maths tells me that there’s no way this is a sustainable population, even if those nests were close enough for the next generation to find each other.

This week I saw some brave chaps high up in an ash tree. They were attached with ropes and harnesses and were diligently dismembering the tree with chainsaws. I asked why they were lopping limbs. They politely replied that the tree was a victim of ash dieback, a terrible fungal disease that is devastating our natural ash trees with up to 80% of our population in danger of being affected. They told me that the dead parts of the tree needed to be removed to stop the spread but also because they might be a danger for passing pedestrians and motorists. 

And here is the problem. We have trees at increased danger from climate change and disease. The tree dies off, either as a whole or by instalments. That’s the natural way of things, it’s always happened and always will. But instead of leaving this deadwood to stand we, in our increased desire to manage all the land around us, remove it. Deadwood is dangerous. Deadwood is unsightly. Deadwood is not economically useful.

But if we remove it all then the creatures that rely on that same rotting wooden carcass have nowhere to live, and this change has happened so quickly (in ecological terms) that they haven’t had time to evolve and adapt, to find somewhere else in which to make their homes. All of our UK native woodpeckers require deadwood in ancient forests for habitat. If we don’t leave some hanging around we run the risk of losing them all.

Woodpeckers are famous for hammering their beaks into trees. By definition, they peck wood, vigorously and loudly in an action known as ‘drumming’, up to 40 times per second. There are three reasons for doing this.

1 - Attracting the attention of a mate in the breeding season.

2 - Finding food, either by locating and dislodging food insects from below the tree’s bark or digging for sweet sap.

3 - Excavating a nest.

As well as a very hard beak, they have an incredible tongue that, in many species, is long and sticky to aid with collecting ants and insects. But it has a secondary use too. The tongue wraps around the brain inside the skull and acts like a crash helmet, protecting the soft brain tissue from damage against the rapid and repeated impacts of the drumming. All you guys who spent the ‘seventies and ‘eighties listening to heavy metal music could have done with this magic tongue arrangement. The headbanging of a woodpecker is so much more charming and calming than any metal drummer’s solo. And it’s a quintessential sound of Britain’s springtime woodlands. 

But unless we change our attitude towards deadwood I fear that it may fall silent over the coming years.