Before today White-backed Woodpecker was one of three
species of regular breeder on the Norwegian mainland that I had not seen in
Norway with the other 2 being Stonechat and Leaches Petrel.
Norway
has a very important population of White-backed Pecker but these birds are all
in the west of Norway and have eluded me the couple of times I have searched
for them in prime habitat. I have however seen the species before in the
Pyrenees where it is supposed to be very hard to find.
Until the
1970s there was a small population in south east Norway, but these died our
possibly as a result of being out-competed by Great Spotted Wood. In Sweden
there are handful of birds left which being augmented by captive bred birds but
I don't think this population has much chance.
Every now
and again irruptions of birds from much further east cross the Baltic and I
wonder whether this is the origin of the bird I saw today as Norwegian birds do
not seem prone to wandering.
The bird
I saw was just 40km from Oslo and was first seen on 6 Nov, there were then a
sighting on 3 Dec but nothing again until a week ago after which it seems to
have settled down into a small area. Despite my dislike for, and incompetence
at, twitching I decided on an early morning visit today and was so successful
that I might have to try it more often. Less than 5 minutes after parking the
car and wandering into the wood I heard tapping and quickly got onto the bird.
I was
then able to watch it for 20 minutes as it hacked noisily at trees at
varying heights. Compared to GS Wood its hacking was louder and it also seemed
to attack the trees more violently with splinters flying.
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| male White-backed Woodpecker (hvitryggspett) - the snow shows how close to the ground the bird was |
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