Gales of laughter gusted down the lane. What was it? Not human. Was a hyena loose among the rain-sodden sheep? The green woodpecker’s call is surely among the most striking in the animal kingdom. The ringing, ding-dinging, raucous, yaffling cry travelled over the murky fields and hedgerows. It ended in a crescendo. A rousing skirl of life in the face of the steadily shortening days. Green body, red cap and piercing white eye, the green woodpecker looks as though it’s just escaped from a pantomime, where it was playing the masked hero. No bird looms larger in our folklore. It has scores of alternative names and stars in dozens of legends. One tells how during a drought all animals agree to dig a well, except the green woodpecker who won’t dirty his lovely plumage. Because