No, we didn’t mis-spell the name of the photo sharing service. We’re talking about the the Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus), a medium-sized member of the woodpecker family. We caught sight of one of these beauties on the roof of our neighbor’s house pecking at the entrance to yellowjacket nest, waiting for the stinging little buggers to emerge and be eaten.
That’s all. We’d never seen one, and now we have, and they’re beautiful.
I love these birds (except when they are pecking at our aluminium chimney); we had a pair of them around out house for a few days earlier this year.
I have a picture of the male here:
http://greenrootsphoto.com/files/flicker.jpg
I thought someone was hammering something into my house siding the other day, but it was two flickers cracking open nuts on the roof. Nice pic, Jonathan!
Another interesting fact about flickers is that they find loud surfaces to drum on in order to attract mates. This sometimes causes conflicts between them and homeowners. Here is what the WDFW has to say about it:
1) Drumming: A flicker drums to communicate with a mate or to proclaim its territory and attract a mate. This typically happens during the breeding season (mid March to June), but may continue into July. For reasons that are not fully understood, drumming may also occur for a short time in the fall.
Drumming is the most common reason for flickers to use buildings, and while it may be annoying, the bird’s activity usually does not penetrate completely through wood siding.
Flickers will return year after year to the same house because it works for them; they attract a mate this way. Thus, a flicker that has been using the same location for several years will be hard to move.
I saw a BlueJay this summer first time ever. I seen one once in Oregon. And just yesterday, I saw 3 more in Ballard
Hey Dr. Ofgnillaw,
Just to clarify, did you see a Blue Jay or a Steller’s Jay? Blue Jays are very rare in Washington as their natural range is the Eastern US. Steller’s Jays are a common back yard visitor in Seattle. If they were Blue Jays then I would love to go see them myself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Jay
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steller's_Jay
.
We had a pair of birds that came to hang out in our backyard every Spring for 4-5 years in Dallas in the mid-80’s.
Male Cardinal + Male BlueJay. Together, they were stunningly beautiful! They were awesome to watch!
And they learned to torment my cat for fun…
It’s also possible that Dr. Ofgnillaw saw a Western Scrub-Jay:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Scrub-jay
I have had a pair living in a tree near my house for a few years now and they remind me of the Blue Jays I was accustomed to seeing growing up in the Midwest.
Darn, I got excited and thought maybe you had a lead on Jerry’s Flicker.
John is right, I saw a Steller’s Jay. My fault for the mis-information.
The Great Backyard Bird Count (http://gbbc.birdsource.org/gbbcApps/results) has shown that Flickers have been doing quite well in Washington — big increase between 2008 and 2009.
They’re in the woodpecker family, but unlike most other woodpeckers, they do pretty well in an urban or suburban environment. I seem to remember they’re the one of the few (perhaps the only) type of woodpecker that will feed off the ground (as opposed to only finding food in trees.)
And they are gorgeous, and audibly let you know when they’re in the neighborhood.
Cool! We see them in our yard briefly every year, for the past 12 years or so. Our yard is pretty dang bird friendly, but this is the most unusual bird I ever see. They are a treat to watch.
Watch these birds carefully. We had one peck through our soffit vent screen and tear a bunch of fiberglass insulation out of the area between our indoor ceiling and the roof. Then the bird thought that was his home until we put up sturdy screen to keep it out.
Wow! That’s the most posts I’ve ever seen on a Wallyhood item! Who knew? I regularly have 3 flickers that hang around my yard, and have never had a problem with drumming or other vandalism. I think they’re our most beautiful neighborhood bird. They’re really easy to attract with a suet feeder, especially one with a “tail prop” meant for birds in the woodpecker family. But they’ll also eat sunflower chips from a tube feeder if you’ve got a squirrel cage around it that they can hang on to. Supposedly they’re mostly ground-feeders, but not so much here.
I’m in my 20th or so year of feeding birds here and I’ve now seen 22 species in my most urban Wallingford backyard!
Flickers *are* beautiful. We just had one visit our feeder a few weeks ago for the first time. I saw them often when I lived in more rural places, but this was the first one that had visited in Wallingford. I felt so lucky to have such a special guest — especially at the same moment an Anna’s hummingbird found my hummingbird feeder. Thanks for posting this.
Jenny