These incredible photos show a woodpecker emerging from a nest in full flight and a chick being intimately fed by his mother as it pokes its head from a tree.

Wildlife photographer Andrew Fusek Peters took the adorable images near his home in Lydbury North, near Bishop's Castle, over the Bank Holiday weekend.

One snap shows a cute young chick poking its head through a hole in a tree asking its mother for food.

Others shows the majestic-looking bird gracefully taking flight after Andrew identified a nest while on a walk and spent hours waiting beneath the tree.

Andrew, 54, said: "When the lockdown was more extreme and you could just go for your walk each day I started noticing things around me more.

"Suddenly I was looking up into the trees and hearing sounds of birds I'd never heard before.

"I saw a woodpecker moving around and I looked closer and thought 'My god that's a hole up there' "You can tell it's a woodpecker nest as it is nibbled around the edges and is kind of a slightly brighter red. I got really excited about the potential of that.

"It was just spending a lot of time there as the lockdown eased and sitting under my long telephoto lens to try and catch the moment where it flies out of the nest.

"In terms of flight photos, you just won't see many shots like that because they're technically really difficult to get.

"I think it's like 1/2500 of a second to get that moment with the wings spread as it is leaving the nest.

"You can see the nest but it's a bit of luck and lots and lots of hard work and thousands of missed shots as well."

The photos showing a mother tenderly feeding her chick were taken at a different nest in Bishop's Castle itself, close to a busy main road.

He added: "My friend told me about it, she heard a strange sound that didn't sound like a normal bird calling.

"It was more of a chit chit chit sound. That is the sound that the woodpecker chicks make all the time when they're in the nest.

"They're basically saying, 'I want to be fed'. I went into the woods two or three times and used a little bit of flash.

"It was on the main road and they've got trucks going past so they are quite used to human stuff going on so a little bit of flash is really fine.

"To catch that moment with the beak wide open and the mum moving forward to feed the bird, you just won't see photographs like that with all that kind of detail.

"It's a bit like a painting, in some ways, it's just so beautiful because it's a tiny hole up in a tree and most people wouldn't notice it.

"I think this is where the lockdown has been very positive and I've had to really focus on what's around me and what's local.

"You just find some incredible ones. I've never found woodpecker nests before and I've been doing this six or seven years so it was quite exciting.

"They are not rare birds, but they're hard to find. To photograph either of these two things is a rare thing and a very special moment for me.

"This requires a lot of time, understanding, and a lot of consideration for the birds so you don't disturb them."