I had a nasty shock this morning, my garage was broken in to overnight and some quite valuable recording equipment that I had stored in there was stolen. As well as that, the "low – lifes" went in to my polytunnel and stole small water pumps, tools and a few other things, what a massive intrusion to my life and my property.  After a bit of investigation I realised that the thief or thieves had got in to my garden over a back wall and some garages that adjoin that part of my garden.  I decided on a walk around that area to see if I could see any sign of dropped stuff or whatever.  I could not believe my eyes as I walked down the small ally  at the end of my street that leads to a lawned area,  there on the grass was a Green Woodpecker.

This was just feet from my house and garden.   I live in an extremely built up area and this is the first time that I have seen this species here. I watched it for a minute or two as it feed and then decided to rush back home to get my camera. I didn't  really expect it to still be there when I got back but I was wrong, it was, still feeding on the lawn. It hopped around as it looked for ants which is the main diet of Green Woodpeckers.  I caught sight of it's massively long tongue but didn't manage to capture a photograph of that.  I quite quickly ascertained that it was a juvenile bird just moulting out in to adult plumage with some pin feathers showing through and it still had a few spots on the breast as you can see in the photo above.  You can also see the solid black moustache – called a malar stripe indicating  a female. If it was a male then the  malar stripe  would be edged with red.  After a while I decided to get down on the ground to see if I could get a better angle for a photo.  This was just too much for the bird and it flew to an apple tree in a garden adjoining the green.   It is possible that the bird may return because I have read that once there is a known good food source this is  quite likely.