Bonnie Tate
Northern Flickers. The female is on the left and the male, with the black moustachial stripe, is on the right., September 18, 2021. All photographs by Bonnie Tate.
Northern Flickers (Colaptes auratus) often sit sideways on tree branches, but clearly this flicker was doing something else. It was late summer in September 2021, a warm day in Easton, Massachusetts, with not a cloud in the sky. My first thought was to anthropomorphize her behavior because it looked as if she were flirting with the male Northern Flicker that was just to the right in the same tree snag.
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