The Great Northern Flicker bird is a woodpecker that likes to pick up bugs and insects straight from the ground sometimes. While this bird mostly roosts in the trees it can easily be spotted foraging in the grass. These birds are easy to identify this flicker mostly because of its neck crest and spotted underbelly. They are very skittish and will fly away at the mere thought of walking close by. More times these birds are seen as a blur, flying away from the yard immediately when it detects humans. Which kind of makes them difficult to photograph.
After studying these bird’s behavior flying around my house for weeks this past Winter. I finally chose a window where I could set up my tripod and bird watch for a period of time. The morning I got these images from the front yard of where I live, I set up thinking I wasn’t going to get anything at all. It was a rainy morning, after many days of continuous rain. The Robins and Starlings were out already looking for their worms and grub. Sometimes the Flicker likes to hang out in the yard with the Robins and Starlings. So maybe I’ll get lucky.
2 hours into my session, I was actually looking at my phone during this steady downpour outside when out of nowhere there’s a shadow of a blur across the yard in stopping in the Lilac tree. I’m looking to see if it is indeed a flicker. At first I thought it was just another Robin, but on closer examination, it is indeed the bird I want to photograph. I got a little excited and became doubly excited to see the land in the grass right in front of my. Slowly over the next 30 minutes or so, I watched and photographed this beautiful bird skittering around, almost like it was posing, just for me. I took over 300 images in the span of that 30 minutes. Here are just a few of my favorite. What a beautiful bird. Hope you enjoy the images. It you’re thinking about purchasing one of these images, you should visit my Adobe Stock page at Emerald Studio Photo.
You can also visit my Shopify Store for some awesome Tote Bags featuring images of this bird and many others that I’ve created.
Emerald Studio Photography 