Zwarte Specht Drycopus Martius Drentse vogel van het jaar

. In 2008 birdwatchers in Drenthe were asked to locate all territories of Black Woodpecker. We asked them to interpret observations carefully since the species may be vocal in a large home range, and asked them to search for nests. Largest part of the woodland was covered systematically and for uncovered areas additional information was used from recent publications and a website where everyone can dump his observation. Results are presented in Table 1 and Fig. l.The species was found breeding in all areas more with more than 200 ha of continuous woodland of sufficient age and in most areas with over 300 ha fragmented woodland (depending on degree of fragmentation). Striking differences in density probably are explained by method (mainly mapping method resulting in up to 4 times higher densities (in Table 1 and shaded area in Fig 1). Assuming that the high density in these areas is an artefact of method, we estimate the total for the Province at 56 pairs. This is close to the estimated number in 1998 (62 pairs). This means that after the first breeding in Drenthe around 1929 and a steady increase to about 100 pairs in 1985 and a sharp decline until 1998, the population from then on probably remained stable, as is confirmed by the numbers in SW-Drenthe (Fig. 3).