Young woodpeckers

This year's young woodpeckers arrived in the garden at the end of last week but I have been frustrated in my attempts at photographing them being fed.  Until this morning, that is, when I finally got lucky.

When they first arrive the chicks sit high in the trees waiting for their parents to bring them food, calling but out of view. Then when they move closer they are usually just out of view, or behind a branch, or on the wrong side of a tree trunk, or it is raining and the window is closed!  There are usually only two or three days before the youngsters can get onto the feeders and after that the parents leave them to it.

It is just over two years since I started this blog.  My very first post was on great spotted woodpeckers feeding their young.  Since then there have been over 400 posts and over 40,000 page views but this remains one of my favourite photographic subjects.  It is interesting that I managed the first photo on 14th June in 2014 and 18th June 2015 so it is perhaps a measure of the lateness of the season after a long cold spring this year.