Hey everyone. Yesterday, after dinner, Penguin and I were hanging around washing dishes and through the window we saw a large woodpecker standing on the side of a telephone pole. Needless to say, we rushed to get a camera so we could get a picture of the beautiful bird. We identified it as a Northern Flicker, which is a medium-sized woodpecker.

Northern Flickers are quite interesting. Apparently, the ones that live in the east have yellow under their tails (which can be seen in this picture, a little bit, if you look closely), while the ones from the west have an orange-ish red one. Pretty cool, right?

Another interesting piece of information about the northern flicker is the method by which to distinguish whether they’re males or females. Usually, in birds, the male uses fancy colours as a way of attracting females, and as such, males are more colourful since they need to be super enticing.

In the case of the northern flicker, however, the females are just as colourful and vibrant as the males. In spite of that, it’s easy to differentiate them if you get a good look at their faces. The males have a black line next to their beaks, and the females are distinctly lacking that line.

So there you have it! That’s most of what we know about the northern flicker. Check out Cornell’s Lab of Ornithology, Wikipedia, or whatbird to find out more information and hear their awesome calls!

Here’s the pic:

Peck peck peck peck...