Bygone birding: Wiltshire rector 'singularly happy' to claim county record of black woodpecker

From Birds of Wiltshire (1887)  by the Rev Alfred Charles Smith, Rector of Yatesbury

I think myself singularly happy in claiming  the Black Woodpecker as a record for Wiltshire.

I have never been able to assent to the verdict of those who have pronounced all the recorded specimens in Great Britain as mistakes or impositions.

I cannot, and I do not, believe that all our older ornithologists were so mistaken or deceived, and, on looking over long lists of instances given on what seems to be excellent authority, I feel that  Picus martius has occasionally appeared in England, perhaps more frequently in former years than of late. 

At all events, the single specimen I adduce is now in Mr. James Rawlence's collection at Bulbridge, in the parish of Wilton, and that gentleman received it from Mr. Samuel Pope, then of Kingston Deverill Farm, who assured Mr. Rawlence it was killed while they were shooting rooks in Longleat Park. 

I regret that I cannot give the exact date, but it was some years ago, and it was sent to be stuffed by Mr. King, the well-known bird-stuffer at Warminster, now unhappily deceased, or he might have supplied this and other desired particulars. 

The Black Woodpecker is much larger than all the other European species and is entirely black in colour, the top of the head only excepted, which is of a rich blood-red. 

It is a strong powerful bird, and is common in northern Europe, and found sparingly in the fir forests of Germany and Switzerland. 

When I was in Norway in 1850, I was so fortunate as to fall in with it in the great forest of the Glommen, and shot it as it was ascending the trunk of a fir tree. 

There were two in company, and I followed them as they flew screaming through the forest, but I never saw birds fly more heavily, or with such apparent exertion and such clumsy motion as these. 

It was surprising, too, with what loud-sounding taps they hammered with their powerful beaks on the bark of the trees they were ascending, and I could well understand how they gained the Norwegian name of Spill-Kraka - 'Splinter Crow'  - from the mass of splinters always to be found at the foot of the tree where they carry on their labours. 

In France, it is Le Pic Noir; in Germany, Schwarzspecht; in Italy, Picchio Corvo.

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More about the Black Woodpecker:

THE BLACK WOODPECKER IN BRITAIN: FACT, FICTION OR FRAUD? eBook : Wright, James: Amazon.co.uk: Books

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