Photographs of northern flickers red-shafted and the birds on the Arizona desert and other parts of the state

NORTHERN FLICKERS

RED-SHAFTED

birdfotos.com

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TID-BITS

03-06-06

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Wanting to get out of the extremely dry and polluted air of the Phoenix area
I headed north toward the Grand Canyon's South Rim and the COCONINO PLATEAU.

I don't know which is worse, the polluted Phoenix air; or all of the tourist at the South Rim of the Canyon :-)).

Therefore on this trip I decided to spend time driving the dirt roads in the forest just south of the
Canyon's South Rim and just South of Tusayan a few miles off State route 64 and then West on road 306.

I was told to check out the TANKS. HUMM, tanks,
I started looking for metal tanks with water in them. I didn't know if they
meant big tall round metal tanks or low open top tanks with water in them.

Much to my surprise neither of the above tanks were correct.
I soon found out that a tank up here is no more than a big scraped out hole in the ground
to hold run-off water from the rains and snow melt.
I guess a tank could be anything that held something, thus qualifying a large
depression in the ground no matter how it got there as a TANK.

Many of the tanks were dry, parched, cracked dirt, and no water.
This also meant no wild life would be coming to drink so I kept on driving.
Some of the tanks were numbered and some named as you will see.

After several hours of being driven around with by my friend Don we came across this tank
with a smidgen of damp mud in the bottom of the hole, well, maybe just a bit more than a smidgen.

Inasmuch as there was no water any where else we started to see birds immediately coming in to drink.
Get out those cameras and let's start taking photos I said as I jumped out of Don's vehicle almost before it had stopped.

Inasmuch as there no water any where else we started to see birds immediately coming in to drink.

And this is what it called

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NORTHERN FLICKERS

RED-SHAFTED

A rather large bird about 12 to 14 inches. White to off white or some times buffy breast with black spots. Wings and back same off white with black bars. They also have what I call a black bib around their throat on the front side, sometimes called a necklace. There are 2 types. A Red shafted and a Yellow-shafted. These also can be confused with the Guiled Flicker. The birds you are about to view here are "Red-shafted Northern Flickers". These Flickers lack the RED patch on their nape as the Yellow-shafted Flickers have. The book says these are Red-shafted Morph.

There are no Guilded Flickers where I took these photos.

In the Coconino forest just south of the
Grand Canyon's South Rim and just South of Tusayan a few miles off State route 64 and then West on road 306.

Before going on let me say, at no time where there less than a dozen or more of these birds on the ground and in the trees around this mud hole/tank during the daylight hours. The only problem was, they stayed on the opposite side of where I had my camera set up and seemed to fly for no special reason. So, about the time I would get focused on one it up and would fly off.

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Male on the left - - Female on the right.

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Please note the red in the tail feathers.

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This time the Female is on the left and the male is on the right.

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Red-shafted Flicker or Yellow-shafted Flicker?
They came and went so fast that many times I could not get a good look
at the back side of the bird. But, if you will look at the tail feathers under side it looks as if they just might be yellow.

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