I had a tiring day in central Stockholm yesterday. If I ever post that I'm going there again, can someone PLEASE hit me with a clue stick? What a madhouse. Not helped by the pissing rain and the whole mentality of let's elbow everyone out of the way which really gets up my nose. And the fact that the car park wanted 15kr ($3) per 10 minutes to park, after slugging us congestion tax of 10kr to drive into town anyway. Thieves. I have obviously been living in the sticks far too long. I've never been so happy to leave a place in my life.

But it was not a total loss, as after we finished with our business, I dragged L-G into Taylors & Jones to pick up some snags. People in Australia should feel sympathy for me, because I haven't eaten a sausage in nearly 8 years. Swedes do not know how to make sausages. The only thing they sell here as "sausage" is something that looks like a hot dog. So if you think you are buying chorizio for example and get all excited, you are really narked when you get home and see that it is just a hot dog thingy, with a vague half-arsed semi chilli flavour. And strangely enough, they actually barbeque these things.

But tonight, we will be having real sausages. I bought some of the beef with cracked pepper plus a few of the roast pork and honey sausages. And even better, I found Milo, Mustard Pickles, Vegemite, Birds Custard Powder and (joy of joys) Tim Tams! Mind you they were 58 kr (about $11) a packet but you do these things when you are desperate. So we will be having Tim Tam slams in the days to come.

But today, we are back in the relative peace of Oxelösund, checking out the crazy wildlife. And they don't come crazier than the woodpecker.

Woodpeckers, as their name suggests, peck on the wood of trees to look for or to hide tasty treats, and to build nests. In addition to drilling holes, woodpeckers will knock their heads to send sound signals.

It sounds pretty obvious, doesn't it? But in the same way that I was astounded to learn that cuckoos really did say "Cuckoo", it came as a complete surprise to me that this was seriously how woodpeckers behave. I have heard them many times pecking their little hearts out in the woods. And for those who haven't heard them, they sound like this little guy:




They tap an estimated 8,000-12,000 times per day. I wonder how their bodies handle vigorous, repeated blows to the head as they peck? And to think people accuse ME of being hardheaded. Woodpeckers mostly live in wooded areas and forests. They are known to tap on tree trunks in order to find insects living in crevices in the bark and also to excavate nest cavities. Sometimes they drum on trees to communicate to other woodpeckers and as a part of their courtship behaviour.




As you can see, they are usually quite striking little guys, with their bold black and white feathers and bright red cap. We saw the one above while we were walking around Lake Tåkern last year. We had heard the tapping, but had long given up any thought of seeing the elusive bird, when lo and behold there it was in front of our eyes. So I got to see a live show. I asked L-G if woodpeckers "went to the beech" on a hot day, but he didn't laugh, even after I explained the beech/beach bit. *sigh*.




They are usually found up in the trees, but sometimes venture onto low ground. Though why he is standing there in the pouring rain, I'll never know. We've heard then tapping away while we've been moored to islands in the archipelago, but I've never come close to seeing them again. I've tried to locate the sound and follow the general direction, but they stay out of sight.



Until now. This rather bedraggled specimen was in the woods of Femörefortet, looking as though he'd had a rough night. I am apparently not allowed to post these pictures as they are "not good enough", so we'll just pretend they aren't here.




I know this is not the best example of good old woody, but it's interesting because as we watched, he assumed pecking position and started hammering away. I really liked seeing him use his tail as a sort of bike stand to steady himself while he really dug in and pecked away. There is hardly a day when you don’t hear them working over some of the dead trees and attacking the live ones as well. The birds eat the sap, but they also eat the bugs that are attracted to it. The only problem here is that infection and disease can enter the tree through these holes they make.





So, what kind of holes do they make? Well, you'll be surprised to see that the holes are quite large and obvious. When i first walked along this path and pointed out the damage to L-G, we both assumed it had been some kind of vandalism. But as we saw more and more trees damaged in the same way, sometimes quite high up, I wondered about woodpeckers, but L-G didn't believe it. Fortunately we have a friend who knows a lot about birds in Sweden and when he came for a visit, I dragged him into the woods and showed him these holes.




He confirmed that they were almost certainly woodpeckers. I commented to him that they seemed to do a lot of damage and joked that it was lucky they didn't eat houses, given that the little red wooden cottage is ubiquitous in Sweden. "Oh, but they do!" he answered me and upon looking online, I see that one bird in Öland is definitely living on borrowed time.

He sounds pretty determined, so my money is on the woodpecker, unless they call in Spider Man! I wonder if it works on Stockholmers?