The Northern Flicker

Today I had to get up unusually early (7am) to give The Big Guy a ride to the Skytrain. He still won’t take the bus, which stops less than 200 feet from our house although he’s gotten as far as studying bus timetables and route maps. He was somewhat indignant when I explained to him that the buses don’t exactly take the shortest route directly from our house to the Skytrain station and that the bus that stops at the stop only 25 feet from our house takes longer to get there than the one that stops 200 feet from our house.

Why do we take the Skytrain when we want to go downtown?

It’s not because we’re eco-freaks, although we do modify our behaviour somewhat to be environmentally friendly. It’s not because we don’t each have our very own late-model gas-guzzling vehicle. It’s because we don’t like driving all the way downtown from here in the traffic and rain and then trying to find someplace to park that isn’t full and that you don’t have to take out a loan to pay for and that is secure enough so you don’t have to spend the entire time you are downtown worrying about drug-crazed loonies breaking into your vehicle to search for nickels and dimes between the seat cushions.

Ok, I got a bit side-tracked there.

What I really meant to say was that since I was up unusually early this morning I spotted another bird, the Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus)!

It’s always a treat to see a Northern Flicker. He’s big and colorful and doesn’t come around very often. I think their usual diet is ants and other insects but the one that visits us likes sunflower seeds and suet too.

He’s so big that it’s a challenge to grip the side of suet feeder while his tail feathers are fanned out underneath and he arches his head back far enough to peck at the suet with his big long beak. His weight causes the suet cage to tip so that he’s hanging almost feet up. I don’t think he likes feeding from this position very much!

This picture shows what I mean except that you have to imagine a wire suet cage hanging from a chain instead of the relatively stable feeder in the picture. I’m sorry to say that my bird photography skills have not improved this much (yet). This photo (copyright 2004 Alan Pattinson) is one I snagged from here.

And congratulations to J. who passed her “knowledge important to Canadians” examination and was duly rewarded yesterday with a certificate, id-card and a little paper flag, plus she swore allegiance in both official languages, shook hands with a real judge and sang the national anthem all the way through without any mistakes. Actually, I’m not really sure she made it through with no mistakes but let’s just assume she did.

Now J. can go to hockey games wearing a silly hat and do the wave along with everybody else without being embarrassed. Or not.