woodpecker sited in garden

Hi Cinderella

I am not going to say its common but Great Spotted Woodpeckers do like to visit peanut feeders, having said that i have never had one at mine so well done you, if you have a camera try and get some pictures we all love to see wildlife as well as hear about it. Oh yes and welcome to the forum.

Shane

Hi Cinderella,

Welcome to the forum from me too.

We occasionally get Great Spotted Woodpeckers in my garden, they tend to like fat balls and suet cake when they visit us.

They are not an uncommon garden visitor in areas with a reasonable amount of woodland and mature trees nearby.

H

thankyou both for your swift replies i will be getting a decent camera soon and will hopefully get the chance to take photo if it returns but will need some tuition first on how to add photo.   also thankyou for re directing my question to the right place I did say i was a novice didnt I !!!!

Hi cinderella

I currently have 3 Great Spotted Woodpeckers visiting my peanut feeders every day. I hardly ever look out and see none anywhere. They are always worth watching

Hi cinderella

As others have said Great Spotted Woodpeckers are becoming quite frequent visitors to gardens when there's something they like to eat. This doesn't mean that they are any less pleasurable to see.  There are differences between the males, females and juveniles as Robbo has said. To help you differentiate between then I thought you might like to see some pics.

The male with  a red nape at back of the neck

The female with no red on the nape

A juvenile with a red crown

I hope this helps you to ID it if it returns as I'm sure it will.

great photos thanks they will be very useful  

Hi cinderella, a very warm welcome to the forum. I hope you enjoy it - it can be great fun, very informative and a good way of meeting people with similar interests. It can also get addictive!

I have always had GSWs as I live in a rural location and they almost always feed on a peanut feeder. It has to be a non-squirrel proof one like the ones in TJs amazing photos, because they can't get to the peanuts otherwise. But as you can see from the photos they eat all sorts of food, whatever is available usually. I have occasionally seen some of mine eating the sunflower hearts too, although they find it hard to hold on to the feeder! They are quite shy, so if you try to photograph them, you may have to do it through a window, unless you have a telephoto lens.

Hope you carry on enjoying your garden birds and send us some pics as soon as you can.

I agree about being addictive. this is a great place to while away the hours so between this and the bird watching i ll never have time for anything else !

Thank you for posting photos of the woodpeckers to help identify if they're male, female or young ones! I've been really getting into bird watching during Lockdown and bought a load of food and feeders to attract as much as possible... This morning we had a Great spotted woodpecker on the peanut feeder! A young one by the looks of it!