Like a phoenix... rare woodpecker spotted in city park
Which fit to stand and which to fell
— Andrew Marvell
Having lived for 500 years, the Phoenix perished in flames on its nest. Then a new Phoenix arose from the ashes. The sculpture on the pillar in Dublin's Phoenix Park depicts the pivotal moment.
Now another rebirth is underway... a bird, long absent from Ireland as a breeding species, has returned to the Park. Claims of woodpecker 'drumming' being heard there have been made in recent years. Now a recording, broadcast on the Mooney Goes Wild radio show, confirms the bird's presence.
The great-spotted woodpecker has several calls in its repertoire, but it doesn't actually 'sing'. Instead, it produces loud staccato-like drumrolls by striking its bill on hollow tree-trunks. Both sexes 'drum'; females sometimes initiate 'antiphonal duets'.
The thrush-sized great-spotted is 'great' compared to its smaller cousin, the 'lesser-spotted'. An exotic-looking pied-coloured creature, with conspicuous white shoulder patches, it sometimes visits bird-tables. The male has a crimson skull-cap.
Woodpecker bones were found in ancient cave deposits at two localities in County Clare — the bird was an Irish resident at least up to early Christian times. Our island had extensive forests long ago. A squirrel, it is said, could have travelled from the Atlantic to the Irish Sea without ever touching the ground. The destruction of its trees rendered Ireland the least forested country in Europe. That could explain the woodpecker's disappearance.
The great spotted woodpecker (dendrocopos major) was likely common across Ireland once — it was referred to in early Irish medieval poetry. As woodlands were cleared for agriculture and iron smelting, woodpeckers would have found themselves increasingly homeless and hungry. It is thought they probably became extinct as a breeding species during the 17th or 18th centuries.
But these forest-dwellers didn't abandon us entirely; vagrant ones were recorded here in most years. However, like the mythical Phoenix, they have taken their time before starting to nest. With reforestation, the great-spotted has extending its range gradually in Northern England and Scotland. It began nesting in the Isle of Man during the late 1990s. Then, in 2006, came our breakthrough — a pair nested in County Down. Three years later, breeding was confirmed in Wicklow. The prodigal had returned.
This sedentary bird seldom travels far from its natal roots. "The median distance of all recoveries of birds found dead is just 2 kilometres from the ringing site," says The Migration Atlas. Woodpeckers seldom venture more than 40 kilometres from home. Occasionally, however, 'eruptions' occur; birds move suddenly en masse. Did woodpeckers cross the Irish Sea to Antrim and Wicklow in separate eruptions?
Over the last two decades, the new settlers spread southwards from Wicklow and northwards from Down. According to the Biological Records Centre, they are breeding now in all Irish counties. The Wicklow birds' northward exodus seemed to have been stalled, like that of a besieging army, before the walls of Dublin. Had the city impeded further spread? It seems unlikely... woodpeckers nest in London gardens.
Their arrival in the Phoenix Park, the largest enclosed urban area of its kind in Europe, reassures us city folk. We felt we were being snubbed by the bird.
A woodpecker doing what a woodpecker does.
A video clip of the male Great Spotted Woodpecker (denoted by red patch on back of the head) taken yesterday at River Birch photography Hide Mullingar Ireland. pic.twitter.com/F7k5ESY7Y7 — Joe McNeill (@joemcneillphoto) May 8, 2025
The Park habitat seems ideal for woodpeckers, even if dead trees are often removed. The birds find it easier to make nest-holes in dead wood and hollow tree-trunks resonate well when tapped.
Oddly, the great spotted, 'guardian of the forest', is known elsewhere as the 'rain bird'. Drumming might, perhaps, sound vaguely like distant thunder, forecasting rain to soften the ground, fostering renewal and new growth, phoenix-style.
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