That's life!

The dramatic moment a great spotted woodpecker snatches a great tit from its nest box.

Nature can be fascinating and cruel at the same time. This woodpecker has been determined to get at these chicks for the last week, but I was surprised to see it succeed. It was pure chance that I came across a very short clip lasting hardly 10 seconds on a 25 minute slow-mo video taken yesterday. I had missed it the first time reviewing the video but had marked a short clip of the great tit cleaning out the nest. However unable to find the great tit clip again I was about to delete the video. Before deleting I clicked through randomly and was delighted and surprised to see I had finally captured the woodpecker, which I had been trying to do for days. However what unfolded was not what I was expecting and despite being a unique moment, I would rather have captured the great tits fighting off the woodpecker, which I saw them do yesterday.

Next week I will inspect the nest and hopefully there will be at least two chicks surviving. That said, this video clip was taken yesterday and already this morning I have had to scare off the woodpecker several times, so it has not given up. Last night I considered ways of protecting the nest but failed to come up with anything practical. I will probably modify the nest box for next year.

Warning: Video shows the woodpecker snatching a chick from its nest

Woodpecker attacks on bird nests seems to be quite a common occurrence going by some of the YouTube videos. One video shows a woodpecker repeatedly visiting a nest of seven blue tits and it methodically disposes of each chick until the nest is empty. The adult blue tit arrives at one point to just three chicks and looks around clearly wondering what happened to the rest.

The chicks of course hear something entering the nest and think it is feeding time so they strain to be first in line, making them more vulnerable to attack. The chick in my video was caught by its beak and had it not tried to stretch up the woodpecker would probably not have been able to reach it. Such are the laws of nature.

Watching a blue tits live cam nest with nine eggs of which seven have hatched so far, I did wonder why there were not more blue tits and great tits around as they lay so many eggs. Maybe the woodpecker is culling them. It seems unlikely to me that a woodpecker would gorge on seven chicks so what happens to them.