A'inond - eat er A correspondent has written to me about the
behaviour of the greater spotted woodpecker, which is known to feed on berries and fruits as well as insects. The bird has been observed picking up almonds, placing them in a cleft in the tree and breaking them open by hammering them with its beak. Having broken the nut, it eats the kernel. A dish of unshelled almonds often defies the best pair of nut-crackers. The cases are as hard as iron at times, and the power of the woodpecker's beak must be great indeed to enable it to break through. Almonds are not quite so hard when they are just ripe, but they are tougher if anything. I have not seen the greater spotted woodpecker in cultivated gardens containing almond-trees, and I am unable to say whether almond-eating is something new in its feeding habits, but it is an intriguing thought. The placing of the nut in a cleft so that it can 'be attacked is in the same field of behaviour as that of the thrush beating a snail on a stone, or a gull flying up and dropping a mussel so that it can crack it open.
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