“RINGO" OF THE WOODS!
20th March 2020
First signs of fresh greenery
A burst of sun has suddenly brought spring in the door before the clocks have changed, an all too familiar trend, in line with one of the most unstable winters Switzerland has had. But what a wonderful time of the year, and how nice to be out recording! Song Thrushes, Blackbirds, Mistle Thrushes, Chaffinches, all cranking up their songs. Black Redstarts are back and singing on my neighbour’s roof, Black Kites returned about 10 days ago and Red Kites also pass by my house (but they are always silent!). On the feeder we still have Siskins, Bramblings, Hawfinches, Goldfinches, Greenfinches and 5 species of tits. All their songs and calls come crystal clear through the air which is still cool enough to lack moisture. To add to this joy, it always feels really good to me when I hear woodpeckers starting their spring competition for mates and territory in the woods.
Before the coronavirus epidemic restrictions hit, I had taken 2-3 dawn walks in my local woodland, where the first suggestion of leaves have appeared on the deciduous trees. I have had Black, Green, Lesser and Middle Spotted woodpeckers at various times, but it has been the Great Spotted Woodpeckers (Dendrocopos major) (Pic épeiche) that have been putting on a good show for me. A species thriving across Europe, with a voice that they use well, they are our master drummers and the ones most frequently heard:
Lots of birds make incidental mechanical sounds that are not for communication purposes: the whistling wings of a Stock Dove, or a Blackbird flicking dry leaves over, for example. Woodpeckers also do this and here is a Great Spotted excavating a nest hole earlier this week. This is an irregular tap-tap sound, which they also make when foraging, but it is not to be confused with the real riff of drumming:
(NB: The interesting thing about this guy is that he was making strange little sucking sounds as he worked, like he was muttering away to himself. Listen carefully (preferably with headphones), it can be heard around 14 secs and more clearly at 33 secs, just before he flew off. This was new to me.
Male Great Spotted Woodpecker © Frank Jarvis
Now, drumming is just another way of producing sound to communicate, like the tail feathers of a Snipe, or the bill clattering of a Stork. Drumming, for a woodpecker, has a distinct meaning - for mate attraction and announcing territorial possession. I have also read that they will drum if they are alarmed or excited. Both males and females will drum, especially in the breeding season, but it is the male who seems to drum more often and more vigorously, and we will explore this further.
Exactly what the detailed information is that gets transmitted by drumming is not clear. If you have just a few species in your area it is possible to learn the manner in which each species drums, and so you can know who is about. Studies of four species of woodpeckers in the US showed that birds were more reactive to the drumming of their own species, rather than other woodpecker species that live nearby (Dodenhoff, Stark & Johnson 2001). The species identification is contained in the mechanics of the beats: such things as cadence (strikes per sec), duration, total number of strikes etc.. These all create a characteristic pattern for a species.
People have also wondered whether individuals birds have their own drumming “fingerprint”. Drumming is a very physical thing. If you have ever watched a woodpecker drum it braces its feet and tail and uses its whole body to make the strike. Using the assumption that speed of drumming could somehow indicate dominance, Schuppe and Fuxjager (2017) played back recorded drumming sounds to Downy Woodpeckers (Picoides pubescens) in the USA. These normally drum at about 16 strikes per second, but Schuppe and Fuxjager found that an increase in speed of the played sounds of only 9 milliseconds per strike elicited an aggressive response from the resident birds and they even tried to increase their own speed of drumming.
The feet and tail of woodpeckers form a very stable tripod for drumming which requires strong back and neck muscles. © Arlette Berlie
This is only detecting speed changes that may indicate a dominant intruder. Could pairs identify each other, or their neighbours, as many species of song birds can do? Recent studies have shown how tricky this can be. The drumming of 41 Great Spotted Woodpeckers were recorded from different sites across Poland and analysed in detail (Budka et al 2018). They found that males drummed faster than females most of the time, and that may give birds a strong clue as to the sex of the drummer. However, the results were ambiguous. They had strong statistical indications that by integrating drumming speed with the total number of strikes in a roll one could identify the individual that drummed about 80% of the time. So that may provide a way that birds can use this for identifying an individual. More work on this is needed to be sure, and of course it is all too much for our lousy human ears!
Anyway, back to my early morning walks……all these great studies focus on speed and duration of drumming. But what is most noticeable to us is whether the drum is on a high note or a low note. That does not tell us much about the bird as it is totally dependent upon the nature of the wood the bird is beating on. Size of branch, degree of dryness, its length, etc. will all affect the note that is produced - just like a xylophone.
When I arrived at one of my sites this week, I was confronted with this busy woodpecker soundscape:
Home sweet home. © Arlette Berlie
Listen carefully, I think I can count at least four different woodpeckers in there and they were spread over a wide area, with probably 250m distance between the furthest apart. I could not get away from the impression that they were answering each other, almost having a conversation, or perhaps a shouting match? You can also hear clearly the ones who had chosen a firm, dry, drumming branch which resonated well, and those on a softer substrate. I walked on, turning these thoughts around in my mind, considering whether the ones that selected a branch with the best resonating characteristics, located high up in a tree so that the sound travels further, were more likely to win out in the competition for territory or mates. Do they compete for drumming posts? Do they spend time selecting the best ones within their territory or is it just wherever they land?
I rounded a corner onto a wider track and, suddenly, was aware that one of my subjects was about 50m from me, drumming on a dead snag at the top of a tree. I recorded two drum rolls immediately. But, probably uncomfortable with my presence, it left, flying over my head with the intermittent wing beats of the flight pattern of the Great Spotted Woodpecker:
(At the end of that piece you can also hear the calls of a couple of Buzzards who were displaying nearby).
A drum kit for a Great Spotted Woodpecker…
I turned to follow the bird, and saw that it had flown into a Scots Pine about 50m behind me and with a clear view and sound path. The Scots Pine had several dead snags sticking out from the main trunk, at various angles (see photo). The bird then proceeded to hop from one to another testing them each in turn with a drum roll, sometimes two drum rolls if it thought it had a viable post. However, in the end, it didn’t stay but repeated the exercise on another tree much further away. In this recording, you can hear all the different notes the first tree had to offer and the rattling noises of wings and feet as it hopped about.
Dead wood and old snags are vital for good wooodpecker conservation
I clearly had the impression that my bird was trying to decide which drumming branch to choose, in order to carry on the “conversation” or “argument” that I had so rudely interrupted.
There is a lot we still don’t know about the biology of even a common species like the Great Spotted Woodpecker. Thankfully, it is now government policy that Swiss foresters manage their forests for biodiversity, so the dead snags, rotting tree stumps, and the less than perfect trees that are so important for woodpeckers and their insect food supply are left in place. This means we can have a reasonably intact nature while having timber production in the same patch of land.
Long may it last, and long may the woodland orchestra retain its star(r) drummer !
