Northern Flicker

A lovely colourful Northern Flicker was a visitor to my garden recently. This was over the other side of the fence, in the front garden, right outside my living room window. It was icy outside and spitting something between ice and snow. He sat on the bird feeder for quite a while and me, wanting a halfway decent photo, climbed up on top of a table thingy that was near the window so I could take a photo without the window screen being in the way.  He looked a little confused as though wondering what that weird stuff falling on his head was.

I love these woodpeckers. I see them quite regularly in the garden though a lot of times they are on the ground feeding. They are really quite colourful. They have spotted chests, lovely grey heads, a red heart on the back of their heads and the males have black mustaches. When they fly you can see bright yellow feathers that are hidden when they are still.

This picture isn't the greatest but you can see the yellow feathers underneath. This one was taken in the back garden. This guy did not like a sparrow trying to get close to the suet feeder.

New Year...New Start

It's been a while since I wrote in here, but this time I am determined to keep up with the blog. I am designating today a good day to start again.

As it is winter here in Michigan there isn't too much going on in the garden. The days are short and the birds have only a short period each day to feed. They are all tucked up again by the time mid-afternoon draws in. Everything is cloudy and grey - there is a layer of ice in the garden from the storm last week.

A quartet of crows have been visiting the garden. They like the peanuts I put out for the blue jays.

There is also a hawk that seems to circle around. The blue jays usually squawk out a warning before it catches anything, but once in a while it gets lucky. Husband says last week (while I was away) it caught one of the sparrows. Once in a while the hawks come close enough to capture a photo of.

It was quite windy this day and the feathers were blowing in the wind. There was a few snowflakes floating around. The hawk watched quite carefully and patiently for a little while before flying off in hopes of finding easier prey.