So that's how they do it!

If you are ever lucky enough to watch a Green Woodpecker probing for ants on the numerous 'hills' around the reserve did you ever wonder how they managed to pick them up? They posess an incredibly long tongue that shoots out to collect its invertebrate prey. On Sunday Brenda saw a Sparrowhawk kill a Green Woodpecker at a site near to Rainham but it was disturbed by a Crow and left its prize behind . Even more amazingly, its tongue was still out and thus a photographic opportunity not to be missed!

This is the female with wholly black moustaches; the male has red in the centre.

If memory serves me correctly the tongue curls around behind the eyes into the cranial cavity somewhere.....  please do tell me if I have got this wrong!

ps: i know that my ant looks like a Reindeer.......