Has anybody else heard / seen the woodpecker(s) recently residing in Blythe Hill Fields? The first time I heard it I thought I was dreaming but I've come across it a few times since in both Blythe Hill fields and Brockley Hill Park, and it really makes my day I'm no bird expert but I've never heard a wild woodpecker in all my London life, so if anyone with more twitching expertise knows, I was wondering how rare or common this might be?

Hi Pippi, there are quite a few of them around, here's one in my garden a few months ago. (He lives in the Garthorne Road nature reserve and makes his presence quite clear )
   

Awwww I love them.

I am obviously just very unobservant! Plus HOP is probs the most wild-life friendly place I've ever lived

I think there are quite a few - I have even spotted these in Camberwell New Cemetery and agree with you re HOP wildlife. However, if Southwark Council get their way this could be diminished somewhat: http://www.se23.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=11216

Both the Great Spotted and Green Woodpeckers are regular visitors to gardens up the hill behind FH Library.

Green woodpecker spotted yesterday morning in garden at junction of Canonbie & Honor Oak Road - a huge bird, the largest of the woodpeckers.

I regularly have a woodpecker in my garden, and you can hear them tapping away all over SE23 - if you listen! They are not always easy to see because they cling to the sides of trees rather than sitting on the branches and are quite shy. Mine starts to shuffle around to the far side of the tree trunk when he sees me coming.

Interesting the last time I walked through Camberwell Cemetery I saw a woodpecker too

We saw the green woodpecker last week at Blythe Hill Fields, amazing sounds too 😃

And don't get me started on the parakeets Amazing!

Almost guaranteed to hear and see them in Sydenham Hill Woods at the moment, the great spotted variety at least. Love the drumming sound!

Pecking order on our balcony:

First the squirrel...
then the woodpigeon...
then the magpie...
then the parakeets...
then the beautiful woodpecker!

...and, if any food is left, the little bluetits

Listen and you will hear the green woodpecker "yaffling" which makes it sound like a kookaburra and drumming - it is the green one does that. The greater spotted flits around and has the black and white spots with the red rump and the male has a red cap. It has a loud "chack" type call. Both are very common here in SE23 and the spotted is a regular visitor to bird tables and peanut feeders. And yes - I do need to get out more.

The Great Spotted Woodpecker drums a lot at this time of the year. There is one which has been doing it every morning for the past week or more somewhere around the Hurstbourne road area. And yes I spent a lot of my early teens birdwatching when I could have been getting out more....but then things were different in the 70's.

I agree with Pippi that this area is fantastic for wildlife, way better than anywhere else I've lived in London. I've turned into a right twitcher since moving to the South Circular, who would've thought!

Bird walks at the Horniman are great, we saw lots of stuff there a few weeks ago.

And if we're talking about woodpeckers what about the kingfishers down in Ladywell Fields on the River Pool! Completely amazing to see the flash of blue in urban Lewisham.

Totally agree Diana, a truly amazing sight 😀😀😀

Kingfishers have also been spotted on the pool river behind the Savacentre.

I saw a Kingfisher in Kelsey Park which is not far, and have heard as mentioned above them being sighted in the River Pool.

In our Garden we regularly get Greater Spotted Woodpecker to the peanut feeder, have seen a green woodpecker once in the 9 years we have been here, Nuthatches, Blue and Great tits daily as well as robins, blackbirds, wood pigeons, pigeons, magpies, parakeets, jays less frequently, and I have seen some long tailed tits this year, and wrens in the past as well as bullfinches and greenfinches (not recently) but we have goldfinches at present eating the niger seeds.

edit ** I should add it took a while before the birds started coming to the garden, so don't be disheartened if you put feeders out and get nothing at the start.

I personally love the nuthatches.

Does anyone know in summer if it is swifts or swallows we have in the skies above?

We also have a fox den in the garden, though that does not seem to disturb the cats or squirrels.....

This post was last modified: 01-04-2015 10:16 PM by OakR.

I bring news of a heron spotted in Dacres Wood over the weekend, removing a dead frog from the pond.

There are plenty of swifts and house martins around Perry Vale in the summer, less so in the uplands of Forest Hill. But I'm sure I've bored everybody by now with my tales of bats flying over my garden in the summer. I still find bats the most incredible wildlife to have in Forest Hill (other than the walrus)

This post was last modified: 01-04-2015 10:27 PM by michael.