I have to admit I have a love/hate relationship with Flickers. I think they are beautiful birds and love their calls but when they start pecking the metal flashing on my fireplace in the early morning, I want to kill them! Recently my resident male flashing menace found a possible future mate. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my big camera handy but when I saw him doing his mating dance for her, I grabbed my cell and caught a few pics before they flew away.
The mating dance seemed to be fly around her, land in front of her, and show her his best Night at the Roxbury impersonation.
It would not be my first choice of moves but it seemed to work for him and she seemed very interested!
I’m pretty sure it worked since they flew off together and it has been one of the quietest springs in years on the house rattling front. Sorry I didn’t get more shots or better quality ones but still thought it might be of interest.
I was convinced this said bird droppings: fuckers at first.
I make so many typos these days, I had to double check that it didn’t!
The birds are in full force in the maple tree in front of my house. I know because of the number of bird droppings on my rental car.
Of course you have a maple tree! Did you tap yours this year? Supermarket maple syrup in the US is incredibly expensive now, so if you could get the tapping and the boiling down that tree could be a nice little side hustle.
Ha… I think the maple tree in my front yard isn’t one of the varieties that produce sap.
It also would help to live in an area with less air pollution.
This reminded me that we used to have a Japanese maple up on our roof. It seemed so fragile but it and its pot were way too heavy to move, so we had to leave it out to suffer the elements when we used to get real weather, like snow or more than a trickle of rain. (I have finally gotten my wish: I am living in LA weather-wise.) It survived it all but, sadly, the aphids got to it, and God knows where the aphids came from. Some idiot neighbor probably moved an unwanted houseplant up there. Idiots. We also had a lemon tree for a while, that was in the glass greenhouse-like structure. I can’t remember what happened to that. I think the “donor” moved and took it with them.
We have 5 different Japanese maples & once established, they are tough plants to kill. They can survive droughts and freezes. Aside from pests, the thing that is most likely to kill them is bad pruning or doing it at the wrong time. You have to really know what you are doing to prune them and keep them looking the way you want them to look. My favorite one to shoot pictures of is only about 5 ft tall & 10 ft wide but is at least 60 years old. I have to almost lay underneath it to shoot it and my wife spends hours each spring trying to keep it under control. In the fall it is spectacular!
Those didn’t look familiar, so I looked them up. They’re Red Shafted Northern Flickers, while we get Yellow Shafted Northern Flickers.
It’s interesting to me how huge the differences are between so many birds east and west of the Rockies. They’ll migrate huge distances north and south, including over the Gulf of Mexico, but going east-west is out of the question.
Yeah, that is pretty strange. Jays are funny too, we get lots of Steller’s Jays but not Blue Jays. The west side of WA has no Magpies or Turkey Vultures but the east side of the state has tons of them.
For us, it’s the Blue Jays have a tendency to disappear when on offense.
Oh wait, you’re talking about actual Jays.
Isn’t it something about how they navigate? Like, somehow they know to turn south in winter to get warm. Star alignment or something? But they have no interest in avian tourism.
I love northern flickers, but I don’t have issues with them rattling my house. I need to figure out what nesting boxes they and downy woodpeckers like, so some will stick around as mosquito control in the summer.