It's Green, not Great Spotted! Auction house changes woodpecker identification just hours before sale

Name that species! The bronze artwork

AN auction house re-identified a woodpecker species after being alerted to its mistake by this blog.

Salisbury-based  Woolley and Wallis at first remained insistent that a bronze sculpture by Geffrey Dashwood depicted a Great Spotted Woodpecker rather than a Green Woodpecker as claimed by The Wryneck.

But just hours before the sale on June 2, the firm acknowledged its lapse and changed the ID of Lot 332 to Green Woodpecker which is a scarcer species.

In the event, the  piece - which  measures 19.2cm x 11.2cm x 6.2cm - sold for a handsome £3,810.

This was an excellent result for both auction house and sculptor because the pre-sale guide price was that the hammer would fall at somewhere between £2,000 and £3,000.