Nebraska: Some Thanksgiving Picids

My schedule has been a full one these last weeks: Thanksgiving in Nebraska was followed by early December in Sonora was followed by a few days in Panama was followed by the dire need to get this house cleaned up for Alison’s arrival! And with a new old computer, I find myself unable to work conveniently and consistently with any of the photos I’ve taken recently, so I hope that any readers out there (anyone? anyone?) will forgive the chronological jumble of these next postings.

For all its wonder, eastern Nebraska really doesn’t hold a candle to the birderly heaven that is southeast Arizona. Sorry! But still, it was great late last month to see a number of species and subspecies we don’t often run across here in the sky islands, among them a nice little variety of woodpeckers.

Carolyn’s yard and feeders, as usual, were attractive to a good range of picids, including this male Yellow-shafted Flicker. Every year in southeast Arizona, somebody gets to see a representative of this distinctive subspecies group; the best I’ve ever managed, though, was an introgressant one winter at Catalina State Park. The bird above, a fancy male, is readily distinguished from the western red-shafted forms by his black malar, buffy face, gray hood, and red nape mark.

Flickers are fairly common year-round in southeast Nebraska, but Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers are uncommon migrants at best, and nowadays rather rare as late as the end of the November. In my experience (most of it long ago), adult birds like this snazzy male are pretty close to unheard of in winter; most lingering individuals are smudgy brown first-winters. This one, though, gobbling peanuts at Carolyn’s feeder, is a classic. There is no red on the nape and no ‘bleed’ on the throat, and the back is a lovely gold, irregularly barred in black.

These were just the fanciest of the woodpeckers; the woods and feeders also hosted Downy, Hairy, and plenty of Red-bellied Woodpeckers. I’d hate to be a spider egg mass on a branch in early winter in Nebraska!