The Younger of the Two Male GSWs Who Visit My Garden Daily

After at least four years of being a bachelor recluse, the younger of the two male Great Spotted Woodpeckers who inhabit opposite ends of the little wood at the top of my garden has finally found himself a mate! For nearly a week he’s been beating out seductive rhythms on an old hollow tree and now the young lady shown below has finally answered his call! I’ve seen her in the garden all by herself a couple of times, but today she arrived with her new beau and they shared a romantic suet a la coconut for two!

““Peg the Jackdaw is pretty much like “Scraps” the Chaffinch….all alone in the world! It’s the price you pay for being a little bit different and I firmly believe that Peg is shunned by all the other Jackdaws in the village simply because she’s semi-leucistic and the markings on her plumage set her apart from all the others. As a result and again like Scraps, she makes frequent visits to my garden to take advantage of the free handouts….especially the peanut butter!However, I’m very worried about her at the moment because she’s picked up a very nasty leg injury at some point during the last few days and it seems to be not only very painful, but getting worse by the hour!I’ve tried several different ways to trap her and get her down to the vet’s, but like 90% of all the other females I’ve known in my life, she’s a lot damn smarter than me!Anyway, I’ll keep trying. Meanwhile, I’ll be doing a special diary entry about her on the “Brown” page on www.wildliferanger.com as soon as I get the internet on my own computer working again (I’m typing this on my daughter’s so it’s not ideal and I don’t have access to all my files etc)!