“A woodpecker weighs less than a bar of soap. On a frosty night, he burns through almost everything he ate that day.” — Why a seventy-three-year-old Shropshire linesman is letting go of his last woodpecker feeders at a special price before the coldest months arrive.

Minus Six at First Light. One Small Bird. And Sixteen Hours of Darkness Behind Him.

At twenty to eight on a January morning, the thermometer on Geoff Pritchard’s shed in Clun, South Shropshire, read minus six. A great spotted woodpecker was already at the apple tree by his kitchen window. It had been dark for sixteen hours.

“That bird weighs less than a bar of soap,” Geoff says. “On a night like that, he burns most of the fat he put on the day before. By morning he’s running on empty. He has to eat, and he has to eat now.”

Geoff stood at the window with his tea and watched the bird eat for forty minutes. He didn’t move until it had finished.

The Birds That Stay When the Swallows Have Long Gone

Swallows and swifts leave in autumn. Woodpeckers don’t. They stay through every frost and every storm, in the same small patch of woodland, all winter long.

They live on insects hidden in wood: beetles and grubs under the bark of old and dead trees. In winter, those insects are locked inside frozen wood. And the old trees are disappearing, too. Dead branches and hollow trunks get cleared away because they look untidy or might come down in a gale.

The lesser spotted woodpecker, once found in woods all over England, has fallen by more than three quarters since the 1970s and is now on the UK Red List. Geoff knows the problem first-hand. He saw it from thirty feet up.

He Replaced Hundreds of Poles Woodpeckers Had Drilled. He Never Once Blamed Them.

From 1969 to 2007, Geoff was a telephone linesman in the Shropshire hills, first for the GPO, then for British Telecom. That meant thirty-eight years of climbing wooden telegraph poles, with a thick leather safety belt around his waist and a strap round the pole.

Many of those poles were full of holes. Great spotted woodpeckers had drilled into them looking for food and a place to nest. Geoff replaced more than two hundred and fifty of them.

“People called them a nuisance. I never did. They went for my poles because somebody had cut down their trees. A pole was the nearest thing to a dead tree they could find.”— Geoff Pritchard

While he worked, he watched them. And he noticed something that almost every feeder in the garden centre gets wrong.

A Woodpecker Doesn’t Just Eat With His Beak. He Eats With His Tail.

A woodpecker never sits like a sparrow. It grips the wood with its toes and leans back on its stiff tail feathers. The tail holds it in place, so the body can swing forward and peck.

“That tail is his safety belt,” Geoff says. “He leans back on it the same way I leaned back on mine. Take it away, and he can’t work.”

On an ordinary wire suet cage, there is nothing under the bird. Its tail hangs in the air. It has to hold on with its toes alone, which costs energy it can’t spare. Often it gives up after a few bites.

So Geoff Built a Feeder With Something to Lean On

When Geoff retired in 2008, he started building suet feeders in the old pigsty behind his cottage. Under each suet cage he added a wooden board, about as long as a woodpecker’s tail, with grooves cut across it like tree bark.

The first one went up on his own apple tree that December. Two days later, a great spotted woodpecker landed, leaned back on the board and ate for ten minutes.

“Ten minutes,” Geoff says. “On my old wire cage, he’d take two bites and be off.”

In seventeen years, Geoff has built about 1,100 of them, for neighbours, for St George’s church fete and for the Saturday market in Ludlow.

Why Woodpeckers Stay for Minutes Instead of Seconds

The Old Belt That Still Hangs by the Workbench

Geoff’s workshop smells of wood stain, tea and beef suet. A little stove ticks in the corner. And on a nail next to the workbench hangs his old safety belt. The leather on the back is worn smooth from thirty-eight years of leaning against poles.

Geoff spaced the grooves on every tail board to match the notches on that belt.

“That belt kept me on the pole for thirty-eight years. The board does the same job for him. I just made it out of wood.”— Geoff Pritchard

“I Held On to Poles My Whole Working Life. Now I Can’t Hold a Router Steady.”

For seventeen winters, Geoff’s mornings looked the same. Tea at the window. Count the woodpeckers. Then out to the workshop, with the radio on and the stove going. That is what he will miss most.

But thirty-eight years of climbing and gripping have caught up with him. He has arthritis in both thumbs and a right shoulder that has never been the same. Cutting the wood still works. Cutting the grooves does not. The router has to be held perfectly still, and his hands won’t do it anymore.

“I held on to poles my whole working life,” he says. “Now I can’t hold a router steady for ten seconds.”

“The Woodpeckers Can’t Pay. So I Won’t Ask Much.”

At Ludlow market, Geoff’s feeders sold for £60. He could ask that again. He won’t.

“I don’t want these sitting in a box in my shed,” he says. “I want every one of them on a tree this winter, with a woodpecker leaning on it. That’s all I’m after.”

So he set a low farewell price. Whoever takes one of his last feeders keeps a woodpecker fed through the cold months, the way Geoff did for seventeen winters.

Geoff doesn’t own a computer. This summer his daughter Rachel, a district nurse in Shrewsbury, photographed the last feeders and found a small online shop, Cedar & Tin, to post them. “Rachel does the computer side,” Geoff says. “I do the tape and the boxes.”

What Bird Lovers Say About Geoff’s Feeder

• ★★★★★

  “My old wire cage only got pigeons pecking at the bottom and a woodpecker that never stayed. Geoff’s feeder has had a great spotted on it every morning since the first week. He just leans back and eats.”

  – Graham P., Worcester
• ★★★★★

  “Refilling is so easy. Lift the lid, drop the block in, done. I do it in my slippers in January.”

  – Jean T., Hereford
• ★★★★★

  “I bought one for my dad after his hip operation. He can see it from his armchair. Now he rings me every day with a woodpecker report.”

  – Sarah D., Telford

“Give a Woodpecker Something to Lean On, and He Will Stay”

Margaret Ellis taught biology in Shropshire schools for 31 years and has counted garden birds for a county survey for more than twenty winters. She took a close look at Geoff’s feeder.

“Woodpeckers are built to brace against a trunk with their tail. Most suet feeders leave the tail hanging in the air, so the bird works harder just to hold on. A tail board gives it back its natural stance. In winter, when every mouthful counts, that matters.”— Margaret Ellis, retired biology teacher and garden bird survey volunteer

Questions About Geoff’s Feeder

Where can I buy Geoff’s feeder?

Only on this page, through Cedar & Tin. Geoff’s feeders are not sold on Amazon or in any shop.

How long will they be available?

Only while the last batch lasts. Right now there are 74 feeders left. When they are gone, Geoff will not make any more.

What if the woodpeckers don’t come?

You have 30 days to try it. If you are not happy, send a short email and you get your money back. No risk, no fuss.

• ★★★★★

  “Hung it on the old oak at the bottom of the garden in October. By December a great spotted and a pair of nuthatches were taking turns.”

  – Barbara L., Abergavenny
• ★★★★★

  “You can tell it was made by someone who has watched a lot of woodpeckers. That little board underneath makes all the difference.”

  – Keith S., Kidderminster
• ★★★★★

  “My grandchildren and I keep a list on the fridge. Woodpeckers every single day since November.”

  – Pat W., Stoke-on-Trent