Thank you! Before I started photographing and learning more about birds, while cycling through the woods I would from time to time see unknown white-rumped birds flying up from the ground. Then I learned here on Bluesky that Northern Flickers love to eat ants ... Mystery solved!

Thanks, Luis! Have a great week!

Nice to see you, hope all is well

Any time!

Thank you! Always a treat to see or hear one of these beauties.

Thank you! I have a few friends up that way in MI!

A male Northern Flicker – a medium-sized woodpecker – is perched at an angle on a mostly bare tree branch with some buds visible in the background, peering upward with one bright, black eye visible on a sunny, early spring day. The bird is mostly a light and dark creamy tan color, with a black "bib" on its breast and black patches extending backward from the beak, under the eye. The back of its head is gray with a distinct heart-shaped red patch (the females heads are mostly gray). Its breast is dotted with striking black spots, and its wings are gray barred with black. It has very bright yellow tail feathers, just barely visible in this photo as its tail is helping to stabilize the bird on the branch. It has a long, powerful beak.

Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus), Middlegrounds Metropark, Toledo, Ohio, USA, March 2026. ©2026 #birds #nature #photography #naturephotography #middlegrounds #toledo #ohio #spring

❤️🤍🖤

❤️🖤🤍🖤❤️

Thanks, Linda! It's so much easier to find the birds before the leaves are out ... But I look forward to the challenge and the more dynamic backgrounds.

Thanks, Linda! It's so much easier to find the birds before the leaves are out ... But I look forward to the challenge and the more dynamic backgrounds.

@annaquent.bsky.social
@trudyt.bsky.social

Thanks for reposting!

Scale.

Thank you for reposting, @annaquent.bsky.social!

Awesome!

Beautiful!

🙏 Luis!

Looking forward to seeing more!

Looks like a cormorant/heron love child!

Thanks! The little woodpeckers stay here for the winter, one of the few birds that do. Much easier to see them before the leaves are all back out!

Thank you!

Thanks, Kort!

Beautiful.

Excellent! And amusing.

A tiny woodpecker hangs upside-down on a bare tree branch – grasping it with his claws and pressing up with his tail feathers for further support – on a cold but sunny spring day with a bright blue sky in the background. The bird is mostly white but has black wings dotted with white, white bars above and below the eyes, and the males (like this bird) have a distinctive red band that wraps around the back of the head.

Downy Woodpecker (Dryobates pubescens), Middlegrounds Metropark, Toledo, Ohio, USA, March 2026. ©2026 #birds #nature #photography #naturephotography #middlegrounds #toledo #ohio #spring

Outstanding!

Thanks, Jan! I got a chuckle out of that when I saw it!

Thanks, Rob!

Thank you, Luis! Have a great week.

Thank you so much, Linda!