Meet yard bird #18* – this lovely lady Northern Flicker. She was foraging in the back of the yard by the fence, and when I first saw her I thought she was a robin! What a pleasant surprise!
Flickers are the only woodpecker known to commonly feed on the ground. We think she might have been after ants. There is a large anthill behind the fence at the back of our yard and they often make their way on our side of the fence – especially now that we have oranges and grape jelly out for the orioles. Isn’t she striking? What beautiful markings!
Before she left the yard, she had a nice shake on our fence.
* I had previously counted a group of Canada Goose loitering on the roof of the warehouse behind our yard as ‘yard birds’. Since then we’ve had a few other species fly over but I haven’t counted those on our yard list. Since no Canada Goose has actually been in our yard I am not including that species on our list anymore. Our yard list is therefore:
1. American Goldfinch
2. Dark-eyed Junco (slate-colored)
3. Black-capped Chickadee
4. House Finch
5. Mourning Dove
6. House Sparrow
7. Northern Cardinal
8. Red-winged Blackbird
9. Song Sparrow
10. American Robin
11. Downy Woodpecker
12. Brown-headed Cowbird
13. European Starling
14. American Tree Sparrow
15. Common Grackle
16. White-crowned Sparrow
17. Baltimore Oriole
18. Northern Flicker
