Woody

I’d like to introduce you to an acquaintance of mine.  Reader, meet Woody; Woody this is my reader.  At first glance, dear reader, you may quite reasonably think that Woody is a common, garden visiting great-spotted woodpecker, but he isn’t.  In fact he is a Syrian woodpecker.  This species isn’t normally found in the UK, so you can confidently assume that he wasn’t photographed here.

This picture was taken within a small Hungarian town a couple of metres from a junction of two roads and less than five metres from a residents’ front door.  Undisturbed he went about his business, flying back and forth without hindrance of any kind.  While camera wielding visitors such as me would tend to make a fuss over this ‘amazing opportunity’, locals walked by completely unfazed, (well, unfazed by Woody, but amused by my keen interest in photographing him).  Woody wasn’t just tolerated; he was totally accepted to the point of almost being ignored.

The ease with which rural Hungarians live with their natural neighbours is one of the reasons that I enjoy visiting Hungary.  I’ve been there several times so far and would happily go again and again.  Here at home things seem so much different.  I can’t help thinking that a woodpecker attempting to nest in such a public and accessible place would be living on borrowed time.  It would probably be harassed to the point of nest abandonment in no time at all.  It’s testament to a treasure that a lot of Hungarians still have and that we in the UK have mostly lost – an intimate connection with nature.

Back in Hungary; not only was Woody and his mate able to nest without disturbance, they managed to successfully raise at least one very noisy, demanding and ravenous youngster.