Tag Archives: Northern Flicker

First Day

I put some meal worms, nyjer seed, and sunflower kernels out yesterday. The first time, after many, many months. Right away a Chickadee showed up, perhaps because I always call to the birds to let them know I’m putting food out for them.

The Chickadees have continued. I saw three this afternoon out there. And this female Northern Flicker (Yellow-shafted subspecies)(Colaptes auratus auratus), in a Flowering Dogwood tree. The Flicker may take a little while longer to approach the feeder. They aren’t quite as fearless as Chickadees are.

We’ll see. Stay tuned!

_______________________________________________________________________

If you would like to receive my daily blog posts by email, sign up here!

Woodpecker In Highland County

Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus). One of many birds, that I watched from the front porch of the house we stayed in during our visit to Highland County.

The Northern Flicker, along with all other woodpeckers, is in the family Picidae. They have strong bills and most woodpeckers use their bills for drumming and hammering into trees and have long sticky tongues for grabbing insects and larvae from their hammering sites. The Northern Flicker though, listens to a different drummer, and for the most part uses its bill for drumming into soil, looking for ants and beetles and their grubs. And that tongue? It can extend it 2 inches beyond the end of its bill.

And here a male Northern Flicker is either showing off why birds of his species also have the common name of Yellow Shafted Flicker, or he is directing traffic. I’m not sure which.