Got up late. Looked out the window: a female Northern Flicker! The spots were hard to see in the shadows and I had to go check with a birding friend to be sure. I’ve only seen them a few times before. Picture a woodpecker that often doesn’t actually peck wood, rather, it likes to stride through the grass stabbing at insects on the ground, which is what this one was doing.
You have to love a bird that looks like it’s sporting a sock-monkey’s smile.
Got the last of the to-go presents wrapped. Richard mailed them. Collapsed and read cover-to-cover the book “Avian Architecture” that Richard-the-younger and Kim gave me for my birthday. Way cool stuff in there; I could rattle on all day now about bird structures! Who knew a bird colony on a cliff could look like barnacles on a boat.