eXtensions - Thursday 1 January 2026
By Graham K. Rogers
There was a nice surprise for me on new year's day when an unusual bird flew into a tree outside my bedroom and started knock,knock, knocking on the bole. The woodpecker appears to be a few hundred kilometres out of its normal range, which made this an all the more pleasant way to start 2026.
I am always interested in the bird life here. I lived for many years in a small housing estate about 15 kms west of Bangkok, in a house where I had encouraged the growth of trees. This brought many visitors. Apart from the squirrels, snakes and lizards, there was a good selection of avian visitors, some fairly unusual and which I would only have seen normally in rides on my motorbike into rural or forested areas.
Where I live now, there are plenty of pigeons and doves, with a regular fly-past of herons and grebes: heading for lakes and nearby rice fields which are rich with eels and edible (for them) insects at certain times. Rarer visitors include smaller species of birds that exist on the nectar from flowers. They stay for a few days, then move on.
On new year's day I was up a little later than usual and it was quiet outside. As I opened the windows a bird that was slightly smaller than the magpie robin (a frequent visitor) flew on to the trunk of one of the trees outside. I did not recognize it with its stripy black plumage and black head. The shape of the beak reminded me of a woodpecker. I had never seen one in the area. As I finished my thought, the bird gripped the trunk, claws down, head up and began to drill at the wood with that familiar, rapid back and forth head movement. It was a woodpecker.
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I ran for the camera and attached the Sigma 100-400/f5.6 telephoto lens I bought a couple of years back. Every time I raised the camera to my eye, when the drilling told me the bird was back, it spotted me and was off. A couple of hours later, just when I had given up, I was preparing for a late shower (it was new year's day), when I heard the drilling again. This time I managed to take a couple of shots. The bird flew off, perhaps taking grubs to its young, and then (as before) returned, giving me another chance. For some of the time, the bird was on the other side of the tree partly hidden by leaves. Those shots were too dark. It moved then to a tree that was closer to my bedroom window and I managed a few more images.
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After the shower, I searched online for "woodpecker" and "Thailand". Most of the results showed more brightly colored woodpeckers. One site eBird that came up in the search, identified the bird, with a picture of the male, noting that the female has a black crown instead of the red crown of the male. Other online information revealed that the range of this woodpecker usually extends through forested areas of India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and Myanmar: more than 500 Kms from the edges of Bangkok.
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Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs. After 3 years writing a column in the Life supplement, he is now no longer associated with the Bangkok Post. He can be followed on X (@extensions_th). The RSS feed for the articles is http://www.extensions.in.th/ext_link.xml - copy and paste into your feed reader. No AI was used in writing this item.
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