Green Woodpecker

Laughing ant-eater, Bagpuss bookend

The green is the biggest of our three woodpeckers, and quite unlike both the spotted varieties in looks, sounds and habits. 

The call we’re most likely to encounter is the loud laughing cry that gives them their traditional name, ‘yaffle’.

(Fans of Bagpuss will remember that Professor Yaffle is a woodpecker, with the twist that he’s made of wood rather than making holes in it.)

The gull-like yaffling cry carries a long way, and seems to have overridden the desire to drum with their bill to proclaim territory. 

Green woodpeckers do drum a bit but it’s discreet, and tends to be given around the nest hole. Most of the drumming we’re likely to hear will be from the increasingly common great spotted. 

In fact a green woodpecker really doesn’t spend that much time in the trees. They are more likely to be found on the ground, where they spend much of their day deploying their disturbingly long tongue to grab ants. 

Our first view will likely be of a bright yellow rump shooting away from us, low to the ground.

The undulating flight’s distinctive: a few strong flaps propelling them forward and upwards, then dipping a little, then flapping again. As they beat their wings they often let out an offended kik-kik-kik.

Although they need trees to nest in and retreat to, it’s the availability of those ants that’s a better clue as to where we’ll find them. Large garden lawns and grassland in parks are good, when not overly manicured, and also pasture, horse paddocks and the clearings in open woodland. 

So listen out for a loud laugh high in the trees, and watch out for a disappearing yellow backside.

---

Media credits:
Audio: Lawrence Shrove / The British Library on Soundcloud
Image: Regine Tholen on Unsplash