Woodpeckers spotted (and heard)...

In response to a recent Celt article on woodpeckers in Cornafean, one reader has shared his delight in spotting the species of bird in Clones.

Living between Clones and Scotshouse, Fintan McPhillips shares that at least one family of woodpeckers visit his garden regularly since 2018.

“I recall our first sighting clearly,” he begins.

“My wife Jeanette said, ‘What’s that on the birdfeeder?’ I looked around and said, ‘It looks like a woodpecker, but we don’t have woodpeckers in this country’.

“A quick check and sure enough, I was wrong. Woodpeckers have been spreading west from the east coast and their rate of progress seems to be increasing,” he says.

Fintan has taken photos of their visits in 2018, which upon close examination reveal the bird was collecting insects in its beak. He was sure that this was indication that it had young, and was breeding in the area.

Further and regular sightings followed every year since.

“We have had mostly female and occasionally male woodpeckers. The male has a clear red marking on the back of his head, which is missing from the female,” he describes.

“The best and most exciting year for visits was 2024 when we had four woodpeckers at the same time - a male, a female and two juveniles. The juvenile looks like a juvenile bird but also has a red patch on the top on its head, which disappears on females and moves to the back of the head on males. The juveniles sat on the garden fence and the adults fed them with bits from the nutfeeders.”

Two years ago they had a visit from the ESB Networks crew to alert them that they were changing a pole at the back of the house the following day and they would be without power for a few hours.

“I asked why and was told the pole had been damaged by woodpeckers. I could confirm to the crew that ‘yes, there were woodpeckers about and I had seen them on the pole from time to time’. Oddly, I thought, they replaced it with another wooden pole.”

Since the start of this summer the McPhillips family are having daily visits from the woodpeckers to their nut feeder, however to avoid causing sickness and contamination they have taken down their feeders for the summer.

“I haven’t seen the Woodpeckers since then, but they can still be heard. I have left a few dead Ash trees, which they seem to spend some time in.

“We have been very lucky with many other wonderful creatures visiting our garden from time to time, including pine marten, red squirrel, buzzards, jays and hares.”