Northern Flicker

This morning while I was outside on the patio putting up some Christmas Lights I noticed a pair of Northern Flickers in my neighbor’s tree.  We hear flickers daily, but don’t always get a chance to see them.  This photo reveals several things, the red “moustache” indicates it is a male, and also that it belongs to the Red-shafted race of Northern Flickers.  Of course the red-shafted tail feathers would be another indicator of its race. The other race of Northern Flickers is the Yellow-shafted, which is predominantly on the East Coast, but some are seen in Oregon, and just to complicate matters, from what I had read they do inter breed. Anyway, I love their bright colors which today reminded me of Christmas, and although this is Thanksgiving, we are all on our way to Christmas for sure starting tomorrow.