Northern Flicker: Anteater of the Skies!

I was walking through Autumn Meadow Park when I saw a spotty bird with a bit of red on its head. Recognizing it as a flicker, one of our local woodpecker type critters, I stopped and got out my monopod and began to snap away on the camera.

As is my wont, I used my photography to investigate the bird. When I got home, I perused my photos and I looked up the bird, determined to guess whether it is male or female. It is indeed a northern flicker, and based on the black mustache below its bill, I am guessing it is a male.

I noted the spotty wings and belly, and thought, in fact, that the belly part reminded me of when milkweed pods go to seed. It almost looks like white floof with black seeds among them, though I know that isn't so.

I learned a few things about flickers. Top-most is that they are considered the anteaters of the skies! They eat more ants than any other bird in North America, and in fact, one flicker that was analyzed had more than 2000 species of ants in its belly. I can't even imagine eating that many ants!

Northern flickers come in two color variations, red and yellow. The red morph is in the western U.S. and the yellow morph is in the eastern U.S. So since I'm in Pennsylvania, we're going to put it all together and guess that this is a yellow-shafted male northern flicker!

What you can't see, and somehow I just wasn't able to capture it in a still photo, was that the bird was just whaling on the ground, pecking hard, with little clods of dirt flying up in the air! I surmise that there were ANTS there. Clearly this gorgeous fellow was trying to catch up to that Internet bird that had 2000 ants in its belly!

We need a song for a bird that is eating what it absolutely adores, and here is a timely one: Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta, with You Are the One I Want, from Grease. As a bonus, here's an adorable version they did just a few years ago. Also, I came across this Rolling Stone article about Olivia's life, and I loved the way they ended it, so I'm including it here: "Rest in Magic, Olivia Newton-John." 

Rest in magic. I love that!