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.