Not a brilliant photo (taken through a dusty kitchen window with no preparation possible) and certainly no robin redbreast is depicted. I surmise too that the bird is not normally regarded as a native of England. Yet perhaps this poorly taken picture of a strange looking yet dignified, creature scratching around for food on a winter's day in a foreign land, represents something of the present states of mankind and the planet.
Maybe its very survival owes something to global warming as from its highly coloured feathers, I'd hazard a guess that it is more at a home in tropical climes than in darkest SW19/20.
A Very Happy or as our American PP would say Merry and Holy Christmas to all who visit this blog.
Jerry, it's a woodpecker!
ReplyDeleteGreetings Barnaby
ReplyDeleteI usually hear woodpeckers rather than see them so you may be right but this seemed a bit too exotic looking for a woodpecker although that is not apparent from the photo. Maybe a parakeet?
It IS a woodpecker, Jerry! My wife has taken a photo and I'll send it on to you - provided that she can find it among the thousands of others! It's a regular visitor to/reisent of our garden.
ReplyDeleteWell if Madame Barnaby has it as a woodpecker, then that has to be correct.
ReplyDeleteThere was a spate of parakeet sightings here in spring/summer 2010. Rumour had it that some fading pop star or other imported a couple for his aviary then they escaped, managed to survive and bred.
A wood pecker is more apt somehow.
Extensive research reveals the bird in question to be a ... green woodpecker:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.english-country-garden.com/birds/green-woodpecker.htm
Thank you Barnaby and your team of researchers
ReplyDelete