"Winter Oasis for Northern Flickers"

Northern Flickers are almost a daily visitor to our yard now. They have found our pond to be a reliable source of water. Last winter we let it freeze over and we also weren't feeding the birds like we are this year. They haven't eaten from the suit feeder of woodpecker food I bought for them, though. So far, they just hang on our vines and eat the berries.

I didn't realize until I took these images just how fuzzy there little heads are. They look like a soft teddy bear, which I'm assuming is winter plumage because their heads look slick in all the photos I've seen of them in books and online.

So, here you see a series of images of him dipping his beak down between the ice to get a drink of water from our pond, which is pretty much directly under my family room window. I can't open the window to take these shots like I can from up in my blind, but they still came out okay.

Our pond does collect some ice, but we have a heater in it so it never completely freezes over. This also keeps our fish alive. I was amuzed by the fact that he stuck his beak through the smaller crack in the ice instead of the bigger area of water directly below him.

Here he is tilting his head up to swallow the water. It's so cute how they do this.

Now there's a happy little woodpecker! Until next visit...