Common woodland resident.

In the nineteenth century the Great Spotted Woodpecker was a rare breeding species in Hertfordshire. Foster (1914) described it as, “the scarcest of the Woodpeckers”, recording that they were found at Box Wood and Whitney Wood. The Stevenage Woodland Conservation Society recorded in 1969 that Great Spotted Woodpeckers did not nest in Whomerley Wood due to lack of nest sites. The increase noted since 1970 has been linked to woodland in Hertfordshire no longer being intensively managed and holding increased amounts of dead wood which suits it’s needs.

The increase in their numbers may be having an adverse, effect on other bird species, as they are known to predate nests of other species, particularly tits. There is also a known instance in the County where a nest of a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocopus minor) was predated.

Great Spotted Woodpeckers were confirmed as breeding in five of Stevenage’s tetrads in both the 1992 and 2012 Breeding Atlases, an increase from three in the 1973 Atlas.

Recently fledged young seen at: Chells Manor 2016; Aston Allotments 2018; Fairlands Park 2019; Norton Green 2019; Long Lane, Aston End 2020; Edmonds Drive 2024. Two nests were found in Box Wood in 2020 and breeding at Fairlands Valley Park was confirmed in 2022.

The earliest, “drumming” was recoded at Fairlands Valley Park on 31 December 2021.

The 2012 Winter Atlas confirmed their presence from 10 of the tetrads covering Stevenage.

The most seen together are six at Astonbury Wood on 13 November 1983.

Three unusual records; in 1965 a Great Spotted Woodpecker’s nest box in Box Wood was taken over by Tree Sparrows (Passer montanus), one seen perched on a Dahlia Cane at Aston Allotments on 16 September 2011 and, one seen and heard drumming on a TV aerial on 21 April 2016

At Watery Grove the Common Bird Census recorded them holding breeding territories between 1978 and 1999, and they have probably bred there annually since 1980.

Five adults and a juvenile were ringed in Box Wood in 1979.