Colaptes auratus
Northern Flickers are large, brownish woodpeckers with black scalloped plumage, large, slightly curved bills and small rounded heads.
Yesterday morning, I was thrilled when a female Northern Flicker flew into the birdbath for a drink on a chilly autumn day. She seemed to glow in the sunlight.
I'm sharing a bunch of bird and wildlife photos that I have recently photographed in my friend Steve's yard in Arkansas, and from Sequoyah NWR in Oklahoma.
Yesterday the sun was shining and I went for a walk at my local pond. Among the birds that I photographed I enjoyed this pretty female Northern Flicker.
This morning I am sharing a few male Northern Flicker images that I took seven years ago at the edge of a mountain forest in the Targhee National Forest in Idaho.
This adult female Northern Flicker and a male were both foraging for hawthorn berries when I spotted them from across a creek high in the Wasatch Mountains.
By excavating their own nests Northern Flickers provide nests for other woodland birds that can't excavate nesting cavities on their own and those nests can be used over and over again. Nature is brilliant.
This immature Northern Flicker was one of the last birds I spotted and photographed three days ago while up in the Wasatch Mountains and I was happy that she stayed long enough for me to take a nice series of images of her.
I dug into my archives and picked these Northern Flicker photos from May of 2015 to share today because I saw a Northern Flicker yesterday and thought of how they will soon start excavating their nesting cavities to rear their young in.
I photographed my favorite nesting tree in the Targhee National Forest and this Northern Flicker nesting cavity.
My favorite image from photographing yesterday at Farmington Bay WMA is this high key Northern Flicker image taken near Glover's Pond.
Early on the second morning when I was in Montana last week I was able to photograph this male Northern Flicker on the side and top of a weathered fence post.
I could hear the Northern Flicker excavating inside the nesting cavity and when he would stop he would appear with a bill full of shavings and forcefully eject them from the cavity.
I was photographing some Pine Siskins along a road in Madison County, Montana when this male Red-shafted Northern Flicker stuck his head out of his nesting cavity in an aspen and surprised me.