The Price of a Green Woodpecker

THE PRICE OF A GREEN WOODPECKER

The Green Woodpecker, what an exotic regency dandy, a popinjay, no less (see photo) This colloquial term is understandable when viewing the bird in all its singular finery, although other historical slang names of Nicker Pecker and Wood Knacker are undoubtedly more fun.

A wonderful indigenous bird that has other fabulous attributes, a tongue 10 cms in length a third of the length of its body (or 2 foot in human terms) which it wraps back in a whorl inside its skull. An unmistakable loud comical voice giving rise to another popular name the Yaffle. The laughing policeman of the avian world. A veritable exhibitionist P.T. Barnum. And it`s doing all right, a surprise amongst the multitudinous species losses we have experienced. Green by name and green by conservation status, of low conservation concern with a UK distribution which is spreading northwards with increasing abundance in the east although there are losses in the west.

So why has this characterful bird become the principal player in an act between myself and the local council?  Well they have decided to hold a 2 day music event in a local park slap bang in the middle of bird breeding season following on from a similar 1 day event in 2018 . So I have been remonstrating with them on behalf of all the bird life in the park not just the Green Woodpecker. There is a growing amount of evidence that continual noise in breeding season is deleterious to the breeding success of birds, they can just give up nesting, give up incubating or feeding the chicks or they plough on regardless feed their chicks less which can affect the size of successful broods and the longevity of the young.  To be fair we as humans would probably be put off our breeding stride with a constant looped rendition of Smoke on the Water. Now If the response to my concerns from the council was along the lines of  `In this continuing age of austerity we are cash strapped and we need all the income generators we can get` then I may have tugged my forelock and tucked my soapbox under my arm.  However they came back to me with ecological arguments suggesting that urban birds are `robust` and used to the stresses that urban living brings. I guess that means that they are bigger or stronger or both……..Ahem …again there is plenty of scientific evidence to suggest across different species urban birds live in some kind of Dickensian squalor being less healthy, with shorter lifespans, having smaller clutches and offspring and are smaller as adults.  To the council`s credit they have gone through the motions of an ecological survey but this tick box exercise does nothing more than establish that there is a Green Woodpecker close to the boundary but does not establish what effect continual noise has on the parent birds, the egg laying process and chicks. By the way they don`t have to because the science is already there. As far as I know birds are not picky about their preference in musical genre, they universally dislike continual loudness, it`s all rock n roll to them. And herein lies a particular irony. The hairs or follicles in a humans inner ear degenerate over time creating hearing loss, those same follicles in birds regenerate. That`s why science is using this valuable knowledge to establish whether there is any transferable possibilities between species.

On reflection perhaps I should be using an economic rather than an ecological argument.  There is a protocol set up named Ecosystem Services which attempts to create an economic model valuing nature. It works to some extent in broad terms, for example insects as agricultural pollinators worldwide are estimated to be worth £130 billion plus. One important component of Ecosystem Services is the cultural value of nature with human health being encompassed within this framework. Understandably cultural services are particularly hard to cost unless we believe that health is priceless. This in the context of urban green spaces becoming increasingly important for nature and our well being, as more and more pressure compromises our countryside through agricultural processes.

Where does the Nicker Peckers reside in all this argument?  Well I could ask them to be the star turn in a Victorian circus; `Roll up roll up check out the green dandys who live in a hole and wrap their tongues around their head;. 2 bob a peek.`  but they might not turn up because of noise considerations.  Or maybe I should ask `Irony of Follicles` to play an acoustic set.