Towheeblog

The flickers are flippin’ and flappin’, drummin’ and dervishin’. A pair of males were hiccupping and and fencing with flicker beaks on the neighbor’s roof line…not far from where a heron posed just a few days ago. Each bird bears the red mustachio denoting maleness. The beaky behavior indicated a high level of male hormones, lack of dedicated mate and determination to stake and defend a territorial claim.

Later I walked the neighborhood and flicker drumming was all around me. Two different males–maybe these roofers–were on power poles a block apart, each drumming on the top of the metal transfomrer cannister–good loud sound.

I could use a volunteer van driver for a May field trip based on Malheur Field Station, you’d get free room & board and go on all birding trips, May 6-11. Contact me if interested. Cranes, Franklin’s Gulls, Swainson’s Hawks, Golden Eagles, White Pelicans, maybe Eastern Kingbird, (too early for Bobolink or nighthawk).