Both Red-Shafted & Yellow-Shafted Flickers!

by Judy Ranson
(Seattle)

These past few weeks I have been having a good time trying to take photos of the migrating birds at my feeder in our garden south of Seattle.

Yesterday (Nov. 10th)several Flickers stopped by and I tried to photograph them. When I looked carefully at the photos, I suddenly realized that I had captured both a male Red-shafted Flicker and a female Yellow-shafted Flicker. Take a close look at the tail feathers on the female and you will see that there are definitely yellow feathers. Also only the Yellow-shafted has the red feathers at the nap of its neck.

The Red-shafted Flicker is very common here, but this is the first Yellow-shafted that I have seen.

Comment:
Great photos, Judy! Thank you for sharing.
Susan