This morning’s visitors included these guys, and it was especially good to see the larger of the two — the Northern Flicker — in a circumstance other than a startling nighttime encounter on the front porch.
The smaller Downy (I think) Woodpecker usually keeps his distance and even seems to prefer bugs on trees to the seed I put out for others.
The flicker, or flickers before him, has for 24 years shacked up during the winter months under the beams of my front portal. But I forget he is there and there often is commotion — homeowner ducking, bird flapping away — when I wake him coming and going in the dark.
The little woodpecker has been around for a couple of months. The flicker seems to have arrived more recently arrived, but he seems settled in his winter digs now. He or fellow flickers keep coming.
I suspect there is some bird sign on my place that in effect says, “Good place for flickers, despite resident rube roaming around in the dark.”
dream ranch 