I had trouble uploading this last night, so it's a bit late. I was watching the garden when two Great Spotted Woodpeckers arrived at the same feeder. Normally this means a bit of aggravation followed by a lot of posing and a noisy dispute.
This time it all was peace and for a while both birds seemed to be feeding independently, but I soon realised that the youngster on top wasn't doing very much. 
After a short while the adult moved up and stretched up towards the young bird. The beak on the juvenile is noticeably smaller than the parents beak.
The young bird leaned down to received the food that was being offered by the adult bird, a male thith a bit of red on the nape.
Despite the fact the the young bird is pretty well fully grown the adult still ensures that the food is pushed well down the throat of it's off-spring.
This is the first time that I've seen this behaviour. It is really only this year that the Great Spotted Woodpeckers have switched from peanuts to sunflower seed hearts.
1 comment:
Great shots Tony.
We've just had our first GSW on a suet feeder near the house, also presumably driven by young mouths to feed.
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