[tn-bird] "My Friend Flicker!"

What a woodpecker 20 minutes I had!!!  first a flicker flew onto a hackberry 
tree in the back yard, then dropped down to an old pile of wood chips that I 
had asked the chipper service to leave for mulch.  The flicker appeared to be 
absorbed in feeding from the ground.  Musing to myself. "Ants", I left the 
stew pot I had been washing to soak in the sink, grabbed my glasses and 
scooted to the deck.  Yes, the bird was eating ants (a favorite food).  As I 
spent 15 minutes watching, the flicker stood in the middle of the ant hill, 
knocking old wood chips right and left uncovering more "dinner", flicking 
that tongue out to pluck ants from its plumage and remaining in constant 
movement eating the varmints as fast as possible.  The flicker was still 
there and feeding 25 minutes after it first flew down when I finished dishes 
and left to come in to type.

While the flicker was dining, above it on a hackberry tree my first pair of 
sapsuckers this spring were pecking away at the sap holes already existing in 
the tree, Tiring of hackberry sap, the female flew over to a nearby pine 
which is also full of old sap holes.  The male disappeared from the back side 
of the hackberry to places unknown while I was watching the flicker again.

The trees were filled with all my feeder birds--juncos, chickadees, titmice, 
jays. cardinals, grackles, C. wrens, etc.--waiting for me to get the heck off 
the deck so they could come to dinner.  After 15 minutes with the flicker, et 
al, I returned to the  sink where I watched out the window as I finished 
dishes.

No sooner was I inside, my precious pair of downys came to get their peanut 
butter, both on the suet feeder at the same time, eating and "flirting" with 
each other.  His red is almost like a nice bump on his head seemingly more 
prominent during this breeding season than during the rest of the year.  
After the downys finished, the mockers came to eat peanut butter then some 
jelly, and as I was getting ready to leave the kitchen, along came my two 
Carolina wrens for their turn at those goodies.  The cardinals had been to 
eat grape jelly earlier.

I did not see the hairys today, but then I wasn't where I could see their 
favorite spot (the water maple in the front yard).

'Twas a beautiful day "in this neighborhood", and I enjoyed my birding break 
which started with the ant-eating antics of "My Friend Flicker" (apologies to 
Mr. (Fred) Rogers who was one of my classmates at Rollins College, and to the 
producers of a film, "My Friend Flicka", which originally came out when I was 
a child in the 1940's)

Dee Thompson
Nashville, TN.



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