Flicker!

A new visitor to the feeder, whom I have not ever seen.

Flicker.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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16 Comments

  1. Beautiful. You can see the yellow shafts.

  2. Gloria says:

    He looks very like the Northern Flicker that suddenly appeared last year in our senior village. The bark that covers most of the small lots, especially by the sidewalks, was being flung all over. The culprit was nowhere to be seen. It was a mystery until one day I spotted the mess-maker and looked him up in my bird book. He is a relative of the woodpecker. This particular gent uses his long beak to dig for ants, which, I guess are his delicacy of choice. I haven’t seen him near the feeders or fruit.

  3. jarhead462 says:

    I was going to say that he looks like some kind of woodpecker- I know nothing of birds- he sure is pretty though.

    Semper Fi!

  4. Ohio Annie says:

    Yes, he is a type of woodpecker. They make a very wild sounding call.

  5. Richard says:

    Looks like a Northern Flicker to me. Beautiful. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Northern_Flicker.jpg

  6. supertradmom says:

    Many years ago, when we were in Wisconsin, we saw flocks of these Flickers in the wild. Nice to see them on a feeder.

  7. Diane says:

    Wow Father, he is beautiful.

  8. Christina says:

    Yellow shafted flicker. They have a real raucous cry, too.

  9. Rose in NE says:

    Just saw one of these in my yard the other day. Father, I really enjoy your photos.

  10. A Random Friar says:

    Well, if he likes ants, sliced oranges tend to be ant-magnets. Smart bird.

  11. TMG says:

    Wonderful detail in photo #1, Father.

  12. Where’s Penjing?

  13. Tom says:

    Do you ever get Waxwings?

  14. Tom: Yes, they come through and strip the berries from the bushes. When you come near, they swarm up into a nearby tree and stare at you, whistling their weird little tune, looking for all purposes like a cross between Daryl Hannah and punks hanging out at the corner store.

     

  15. irishgirl says:

    Wow, Fr. Z-you got some nice closeups of the flicker!

    I see them when I’m driving-I see the ‘flash’ of white under their rumps as they fly.

    The waxwings are funny-the one on the top branch is looking really ‘ticked’!

    It’s saying, ‘You lookin’ at me?’ [apologies to Robert DiNiro!]

  16. Gary Keith Chesterton says:

    A beautiful bird, to be sure, but one of them nearly drove me out of my mind a few years ago with its early-morning drumming on the siding of my house. I had to get the BB gun out — but I never got a good shot at him. Eventually he just stopped. Nice looking bird, yes, but boy oh boy what a nuisance.

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