Hommel Mangas
Looking out our living room window where I had dutifully darted out in my Crocs and filled the bird feeders before the oncoming Thursday morning snow, I immediately counted:
5 wrens
6 bluebirds
2 cardinals
3 circling and tree-landed eagles
4 small red-bellied woodpeckers
1 northern flicker woodpecker
46 pesky, bullyish grackels (cowbirds)
The male northern flicker that was hanging out and feeding during the snowstorm stood his ground at his favorite suet feeder and fought off the bully grackels. This medium-sized woodpecker was quite handsome with his black bib and spotted belly. He stood out on the long wooden suet-caged feeder with his red nape and flashes of yellow on his flight and tail feathers and a beautifully curved beak.
In a recent Birds and Bloom article, Rachael Liska noted, “With eye-catching and distinct spotted plumage, the northern flicker is arguably the most beautiful woodpecker in North America. But their unique behaviors and characteristics are what really excite birders across the country … Flickers in the East (yellow-shafted) have tan faces, gray crowns, red napes, black mustaches and yellow under wings and tail. These birds are 13 inches long with a wingspan of 20 inches.”
I might agree with her, but I never fail to be wowed seeing the strikingly-large, pileated woodpeckers with their black feathers, white line down their throats and shocking-red plumage — and that 30-inch wingspan. We’ve had a pair (or generational pairs) of pileated hanging around the wooded area since we moved in 32 years ago — although their lifespan is actually about ten years.
But back to the gorgeous northern flicker, Colaptes auratu. I read that it’s a common native to most of North America, parts of Central America, Cuba, and the Cayman Islands, and is one of the few woodpecker species that migrate. I’m not sure that if I had an easy history of migrating that I’d choose to spend winters in my Indiana garden — it’s currently 19 degrees here and a sunny 85 degrees in the Cayman Islands.
Of course, it could have something to do with the fact that northern flickers mate for life and pairs usually return to the same nesting areas — that’s a lot of packing up to do for a few months of the year. And since the breeding season is February until July, it’s easier to just stick around and endure the winter.
