Feathered Visitors
to Wicor Primary School, Portchester
Even though it is winter, and very cold over the last few
weeks, we have been getting lots of bird visitors to our grounds. In particular, we have a resident green
woodpecker which we regularly see in our woodland area. We decided to investigate green woodpeckers, Picus viridis, a little more and found
out that they stay in the UK all year round.
We were really surprised to find out that they only reached the Isle of
Wight in 1910 as that’s only a small jump across the water from us. However, apparently that was the bit that
green woodpeckers weren’t that keen on. We
were also really surprised to find out that they have weak bills as we often
hear our woodpecker tapping away in the trees but they prefer soft dead wood
when excavating for a nest. We think our
green woodpecker is female as we can’t see any red under her bill. The green woodpecker likes a deciduous
habitat and short grass, both of which we have lots of.
It really is a beautiful bird giving flashes of colour
amongst our dark winter trees at the moment.
It has bright green on its upperparts, with a pale bellow underneath, a
bright yellow rump and red on the top of its head. Apparently, it has a nickname of ‘yaffle’
because that’s what its call sounds like – we hadn’t noticed this and will be
listening out carefully over the next few weeks to see if we can identify it by
its call before we see it.
In the summer, green woodpeckers like to eat ants (adult,
larvae and eggs). In the winter, when
there aren’t so many ants around they will eat other invertebrates, pine seeds
and fruit. Green woodpeckers usually
spend most of their time feeding on the ground, although at school we mostly
see them in the trees – maybe there are too many children on the ground! We
have left lots of rough soft patches of grass around our woodland area and in
the orchard for the green woodpecker to encourage them to feed and breed at
school. The Picus viridis has a long sticky tongue which can fish for ants deep
in the nests for as long as an hour and will keep going back to the same ants’
nests again and again for weeks. We were
alarmed to read that some green woodpeckers will raid bee hives, so we have
spoken to our beekeeper and he has reassured us the bees in our six hives are
quite safe.
A fun fact is that ‘Professor Yaffle’, the wooden character
in Bagpuss, was based on it. It also has English folk names of rain-bird
and weather cock as it is supposed to bring on rain.
At Wicor we have tried to make sure that we grow plants that
are native and really helpful to wildlife especially in winter. We have many holly bushes with berries on
which the birds love (they also roost in the holly bushes as the spiky leaves
give protection from predators) and positively encourage ivy, (Hedera helix), as it extends the season
for our bees and has rich berries for the birds. It also has really thick evergreen foliage which
gives the birds shelter. Along our main
drive and in our coastal bed, we grow (and propagate) tuft forming grasses like
Festuca gautieri which has fluffy
seed heads through autumn and winter.
Lots of mini-beasts will hide in the grassy heads which the birds love
too. All around our grounds we have
planted many, many native trees (120 last winter along including an elder grove
and a nuttery) and we have lots of sorbus. The elder, rowan and hawthorn trees around
our site are really popular with birds providing lots of berries well into the
cold, dark days. Along one of our fences
we have grown cotoneasters and pyracantha, which have lots of berries like the
sorbus. Among our many trees we have lots and lots of
silver birches which are really beautiful especially the catkins and silver
bark. They are special trees as they
keep producing catkins with seeds in during winter and many birds eat from them
as they dangle from the branches.
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