My first post about the woodpeckers on the property will feature the Northern Flicker.

The Flicker is a fairly large woodpecker reaching about one foot in length and having a wing span of nearly two feet.  The Flicker pictured above is a male (you can tell by the black mustache on the side of his head).  He's a handsome guy even with his largely grey-black coloring.

I chose to start with the Flicker because of a story I read about Roger Tory Peterson (1906-1996).  He was a 20th century ornithologist, artist, writer and wildlife photographer.  He published the first modern field guide to birds in 1934.  Roger never forgot his childhood encounter with a Flicker ... one might even say this encounter turned him into an ornithologist.  His story reminds me still today that even where we see gloom, there is hope.

Here is Roger's childhood story, taken from his biography at http://rtpi.org/roger-tory-peterson/roger-tory-peterson-biography/

"While hiking with a friend at nearby Swede Hill, the boys spotted a seemingly lifeless clump of brown feathers on a tree, very low to the ground. Although merely sleeping, the boys thought the Northern Flicker was dead. Later, Peterson described the experience: 'I poked it and it burst into color, with the red on the back of its head and the gold on its wing. It was the contrast, you see, between something I thought was dead and something so alive. Like a resurrection. I came to believe birds are the most vivid reflection of life. It made me aware of the world in which we live.' "

Go Ahead -- Poke Him