The Woody Woodpecker Show, Birds on Tenerife

When we camped in the forest above Vilaflor, we noticed that there was almost a complete absence of birds. I’ve noticed this in the past when walking in the forest around La Caldera in La Orotava as well; there’s much less bird activity than I’d find in one morning in my garden.

So it was a pleasant surprise on the Sunday morning at the end of the weekend to wake up and find the pine trees around us absolutely teeming with Great Spotted Woodpeckers. There must have been twenty of them. I’d heard plenty of woodpeckers in the past, but until that moment, I’d never actually seen one in the wild. These ones were behaving exactly like you’d imagine woodpeckers would behave; perched on the sides of trees, tap, tap, tapping away at the trunk, their skull caps shining scarlet in the morning sun.