Fickers abounding

More rain in the night but the morning dawned clear and cool with hefty northwest winds.

A loud, cawing Murder of Crows sent me dashing out the door to see what was up (the last time the crows cried bloody murder in my hearing, it turned out to be two Bald Eagles). This time I never discovered what they were so upset about (it may have been an invisible marauding cat) but I was surprised to see and hear them joined by no less (maybe more) than four Northern Flickers. I suspected right away that this was a family with recently fledged young. Now, even as I am sitting on the porch writing this, one of the Flickers has landed on the cottage fence just outside; it flew down to the ground and then up onto a branch, offering me plenty of opportunity to study it in detail. Perhaps the most unusual thing about this bird was its head markings: a black mustache and a red patch on the nape but also quite a bit of red on the forehead and top of the head. This is a plumage that you will not find in any of the usual field guides but it must indicate an immature or juvenile male bird; I have seen young Hairy Woodpeckers poking their heads out of the nest with red foreheads and I suspect something similar can appear on a young male Flicker! However a loud wick-a-wick-a-wick call suggest that there is at least one adult male in the company.

Eastern Kingbirds continue to operate along the front edge of the woods bordering the pond and creek. One bird seems to take a sentry post calling from the top of a pine, oak or cedar while another bird works lower down, perhaps finding insects on or near the ground. I suspect that the sentry is an adult supervising one or more youngsters who are learning to find food on their own.

I thought that one of the medium-sized terns coming up the creek this morning was an adult Forster's and not a Common Tern. The light wasn't good -- I was up against the bright rising sun -- but this bird has very white primaries and a different silhouette and flight style. Best of all, when it flew past a Common Tern, it looked distinctly larger. What might have been the same bird came flying directly back down the creek with a fish in its mouth, suggesting that it has a breeding site somewhere on the opposite side of the bay. We see Forster's Terns in the late summer and fall but an early summer bird carrying food back across the bay is likely to be nester.

Eric Salzman