I don't know whether this is an extreme example of environmental determinism, or simply, a very confused bird, but whilst I was walking to Holland Park station this morning, I saw a Great Spotted Woodpecker pounding it's beak into the top of a metal utility pole.

That must have hurt. It has to have. Think about it. You're smashing your head against a very resistant surface. It hurts for days whenever I bang my head (always accidentally).

This is not what these birds are supposed to be doing; that jack-hammer beak is meant to break open pliable wood, grind into tree trunks, but attack metal, where did that come from?

Nor did it look like this was something they had just blundered into accidentally, I had the impression this had been going on for some time.

And then, even more bizarrely, I heard another woodpecker doing the same thing. Almost as if they were talking to each other, or more probably courting - we're getting close and closer to Spring after all.

What's going on? Is there a flock of woodpeckers with armour plated beaks on the loose in Holland Park?