Enter woodpecker
This weekend we allowed ourselves a lie in, which meant that we got to see a pleasant sun-rise on a mild morning. It felt more like March than January.
As we crossed the football pitch we could hear a woodpecker’s ratatatatatata nearby. There’s a woodpecker at the bottom of the meadow and we hear it once in a while, but we hadn’t heard it up here for a time. It sounded close so we went into the trees to see if we could find it.
Didn’t take long to come close. I stood beneath a big old sycamore and could hear it above us, but still it was hard to see anything. Ratatatatatata again and again though. It was nearby. It can be hard to follow sounds among the trees but when you’re underneath it you know you’re underneath it. Then, finally, there it was. A tiny dark little bird, right at the top of the tree. It seemed to be walking around upside down up there, flitting in and out of view. Then it flew away. I’d managed to see it if not photograph it (see below - it was at the top of the main trunk).
The nice thing with this little diary is that it gives me the chance to record these things as they arise. We might see a woodpecker once or twice a year but here we are, early January, and we have our first exciting discovery.