OUR bird feeders continue to attract a wide variety of garden species, including regulars like blue tits, great tits, coal tits, greenfinches, chaffinches, house sparrows, hedge sparrows, a pair of robins, a blackbird or two and even a song thrush, plus some cheeky siskins and the occasional goldfinch.

We've had collared doves, wood pigeons, starlings, a cock pheasant, some long-tailed tits and even a visiting sparrowhawk, but our delight had been further enhanced by the regular visits of a great spotted woodpecker.

This is a very handsome bird with striking black and white plumage marked with red. It is sometimes called a pied woodpecker and is about the size of a blackbird.

It is now the most common of our woodpeckers and, although essentially a bird of woodlands, it will venture into gardens where food is available.

If food is present, it will even visit parks in our towns, as well as suburban gardens.

Our visitor loves the bird bath and will venture very close to our kitchen window where a hanging feeder supplies peanuts. The visits are quite regular, usually shortly before 8am and again in the early afternoon.

This morning when I opened the curtains, the movement frightened away dozens of little birds on our feeders, but the woodpecker was not to be deterred.

It continued to hammer at the nuts as if nothing else mattered. It was a frosty morning so perhaps nothing else did matter!

During the bird's earlier visits, I must admit we referred to "our" woodpecker in the masculine, but closer inspection reveals she is female.

The adult male great spotted woodpecker has a distinctive patch of red on the nape of his neck, but this is absent in the female. Both have the same white wing patches, however, and the same striking patch of red beneath the tail.

Like the male, the female will drum on dead trees or branches and even telegraph poles to produce a rapid, hollow-sounding rattle lasting little more than a second, although in that time it will deliver up to ten blows to the wood.

I can hear this drumming most mornings in various trees as I take my daily walk and this is a means of announcing the boundaries of that bird's territory. In the case of the great spotted woodpecker, it is done by both sexes.

At this time of year, of course, our woodpecker may be contemplating the raising of a brood but, as I compile these notes, there is no sign of a male.

Whether or not she is being courted is something I cannot answer, but I shall be keeping my eyes and ears open for indications of a male visitor.

If one does decide to woo our bird, it will be interesting to see whether or not he also comes to our garden for some food, a drink and even an occasional bath. He will, of course, be most welcome, as will his offspring, if and when they arrive on the scene.

The moors in this region are widely covered with bracken, which is regarded as a poisonous pest, being dangerous to both animals and humans.

Various methods have been used in attempts to get rid of this persistent plant, ranging from spraying with chemicals to cutting it down before its roots can become established.

A few years ago, there was even talk of introducing from South Africa a moth called conservula cinesigna, whose caterpillars eat bracken leaves, but there was some concern that these little creatures might also like to eat other plants.

An old fashioned but highly effective means of controlling bracken was to crush the young plants with heavy stone rollers and this continues to be used in some areas.

In the fairly recent past, of course, bracken was harvested for use as animal bedding or even as domestic fuel and this presented a modest form of control.

Burning has been found ineffective because it also destroys other plants which help to keep bracken at bay - after a fire, the bracken has the freedom to grow where it pleases and it will rapidly do so! It grows much faster than the heather.

There is no doubt that the spread of bracken, and the damage it does to the heather in addition to its ability to poison sheep and cattle, is causing constant concern.

If it succeeds in spreading out of control it will eventually obliterate the moorland heather, which in turn will lead to the loss of our grouse and other moorland creatures. If moorland sheep eat bracken, it poisons their systems to the extent of being fatal. If they survive, they will go blind.

Another problem is that densely growing bracken also encourages the breeding of ticks, which affect both sheep and grouse, at the least causing irritation and, at the worst, death.

It is also feared that bracken spores, the plant's means of reproduction, can cause cancer in humans.

It makes sense for holidaymakers and ramblers not to spend too much time close to bracken patches during the summer months when the spores are ripening and being cast into the air.

Occasional exposure to these spores is not considered too harmful, but the real danger comes from prolonged exposure.

It was the spores of ferns, of which bracken is a family member, which our ancestors believed could make them invisible. It was also believed that collecting the spores would endow a person with the ability to exercise power over all living creatures, including other humans.

For this reason, men would trek on to the moors specifically to collect the spores of bracken, often doing so because they were in love with a woman who did not respond to their advances.

A love-sick man believed that, by collecting bracken spores, he could exercise power over the lady of his choice and so persuade her to marry him.

Collecting the spores was not easy, however. It had to be done in complete silence between 11 and midnight on Midsummer Eve. This meant it must be done during the hours of darkness, which added to the difficulty.

The collector had to take either a white cloth or a pewter dish and place it under the plant so that the spores would fall on to it.

But he must not touch the fern or bracken with his bare hands, and was not allowed to shake the plant to dislodge the spores. They must be allowed to fall naturally.

In some parts of the country it was permissible to use a small forked hazel stick to bend the stem of the bracken to ensure the spores fell into the waiting receptacle, but even when this method was used, the plant must not be shaken.

There is little wonder the collection of bracken spores for their magical value was extremely difficult and worrying, especially when evil spirits and witches were doing their best to prevent it!

And it was quite a regular occurrence for a man to believe he had been successful, only to return home and find the spores had vanished. There is no doubt he would believe witches had stolen them. In contemplating this strange ritual, it seems that collecting the spores was also a means of controlling the spread of bracken!

I have received an interesting letter from a reader living at East Rounton, near Northallerton. He refers to a great delicacy, the famous Yorkshire Goose Pie, and has discovered an old recipe which he has passed along to me.

This is for an "Economical Goose Pie" and dates to 1791. There is not the space to include the entire recipe, but I think the ingredients will be of interest.

They include one fat goose, a turkey, two ducks, six woodcocks, a large hare, 24lbs of flour, 6lbs of butter, half a pound of fresh suet and the yolks of eggs. There is no indication of the number of eggs to be used.

The pastry lid has to be made thick and pretty, with the walls of the pie being one and a half inches (4cm) thicker than the lid.

The pie must then be allowed to cook for about four hours in a brown bread oven but, once cooked, it should be closed and allowed to remain for up to ten days before being eaten.

Missing from the recipe is the size of this "economical" pie, or any indication of the number of people it was supposed to feed.