Northern Flicker at Edmonds Marsh

Today we had some free time and went to the Edmonds Marsh to get out while the weather is still great here in the pacific northwest. There we encountered the usually suspects for this time of year, a few Mallards, Killdeers and Great Blue Herons. They were far off in the distance and the sun was directly over head which doesn’t make for great photos. The day was nice so we decided to just enjoy the scenery and enjoy the ocean breeze and sun rays. While walking back to the car we saw this beautiful male Northern Flicker fly into a big tree and then flew out and landed in the middle of the marsh on a tree branch and posed for us for a few minutes. Northern Flickers are large, brown woodpeckers. Flickers appear brownish overall with a white rump patch that’s conspicuous in flight and often visible when perched. The undersides of the wing and tail feathers are bright yellow, for eastern birds, or red, in western birds. Unlike other woodpeckers Northern Flickers prefers to find food on the ground. Ants are its main food, and the flicker digs in the dirt to find them.