View allAll Photos Tagged Flicker
Not many ants around, so this flicker was rooting around in the grass for what ever was edible.
Rondeau Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada, March 21, 2025.
Colaptes auratus
Although it can climb up the trunks of trees and hammer on wood like other woodpeckers, the Northern Flicker prefers to find food on the ground. Ants are its main food, and the flicker digs in the dirt to find them. It uses its long barbed tongue to lap up the ants.
This female flicker had been working on the nest just behind her when this male suitor came to visit. She paused her work to interact some with him, but they didn't proceed as far as the red-breasted sapsuckers from the same day.
Brown face and red on the nape and black malar means yellow-shafted per Sibley.
You have to go east in Colorado to find this yellow-shafted population.
(Red nape and red malar means an intergrade, between red and yellow-shafted.)
The gilded flicker (Colaptes chrysoides) is a large-sized woodpecker (mean length of 29 cm (11 in)) of the Sonoran, Yuma, and eastern Colorado Desert regions of the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico including all of the Baja Peninsula except the extreme northwestern region. Golden yellow underwings distinguish the gilded flicker from the northern flicker found within the same region, which have red underwings.
The gilded flicker most frequently builds its nest hole in a majestic saguaro cactus, excavating a nest hole nearer the top than the ground.The cactus defends itself against water loss into the cavity of the nesting hole by secreting sap that hardens into a waterproof structure that is known as a saguaro boot. Northern flickers, on the other hand, nest in riparian trees and very rarely inhabit saguaros. Gilded flickers occasionally hybridize with northern flickers in the narrow zones where their range and habitat overlap.
Los Angeles. California.
Northern Flicker at Springton Manor County Park.
I am always very pleased when I am able to get close to one of these skittish beauties
Species 115 for the Challenge 150
2017_04_16_EOS 7D_2166_V1
Pulsating or flickering auroras typically follow after a major substorm. They might be caused by electrons bouncing back and forth from pole to pole. Neat to watch but tough to shoot except on video. A substorm is a usually brief outburst or brightening and increase in motion that might last only a few minutes before subsiding. And after it subsides the aurora can sometimes turn into a pulsating form. Never gets tired of seeing the northern lights. I can understand why people travel around the world to see them. After years of photographing this natural phenomenon I still find it beautiful and fascinating every time.
As I concentrate on the softly flickering candle flame during my early morning meditation, I welcome the new day. Namaste. 🙏
Look closely to spot this well-camouflaged female Northern Flicker at her nest in Montpelier, Idaho. Flickers are woodpeckers that nest in cavities they excavate in trees. I was very lucky to spot this hole, and learned that it was an active nest after waiting a few minutes for the bird to arrive.
I have a bunch of this Northern Flicker I ran into two days in a row. I suspect it was the same--same area, cooperative, unlike other Flickers who are usually quite skittish. I'll spread them out, but you'll see some slight repeats--some of them, like this one, I cropped close for detail, others I kept the entire body.
Thanks for Viewing.
This flicker was using an uninhabited owl box as a drum, I like the textures of the Cedar bark and rough sawn wood and having a flicker for FlickrFriday felt like I was checking all the boxes.
A Northern flicker responds to my pishing from behind a nearby tree.
Taken at South Harrison Community Park, Elizabeth IN.
It was wonderful to get a chance to photograph both the Red-shafted (left) and the Yellow-shafted (right) Northern Flickers at Hidden Springs, Idaho
The yellow feathers on a Northern Flicker are generally concealed when not in flight. But the strong wind today helped me see some of that on this male. Hennepin County, MN 03/17/23
I overstayed my welcome watching this flicker build its nest. It is giving me a piece of its mind.
Thanks for the visit!
Mostly winter birds in central Oklahoma. We saw a few this morning, but most were in flight, but a few were on the ground. They eat a lot of ants with their long, sticky tongues. Flickers are pretty spooky, so the 800mm Canon helped a bit on birds this morning.. Our beautiful world, pass it on.
Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus), " the Yellow-shafted" variety is on territory in the aspen woods bordering the shores of the South Saskatchewan River south of Oyen, Alberta, Canada.
19 May, 2016.
Slide # GWB_20160519_0106.CR2
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