Northern Flicker

Back to birds today, after yesterday's frivolous "Sistine Chapel of Swansea" (as my friend David dubbed it in one of his regular emails).

This Northern Flicker (a species of woodpecker) is nesting close to the Rail Trail in Amherst, about 30 feet (10 meters) high in a dead tree; we had been toldthey were there but not seen them until today. There are two subspecies of flickers: this is the eastern or yellow-shafted (a bit of the yellow shafts on its wings is perhaps barely visible in large,at the base of the tail. I blipped the red-shafted or western subspecies in November 2010 (though unfortunately the red shafts are entirely hidden in that image).

Now I've just backdated an image from 2006 in California of a flicker with its red shafts wonderfully spread--do have a look.