Flickers and kinglets and pandas, oh my!

Saturday April 20, 2024: 33 new birds of 8 species, 7 recaps. New species: Yellow-shafted Flicker and House Wren. Bird of the day was Ruby-crowned Kinglet with 20 new bands, followed by Golden-crowned Kinglet with six new bands.

The day started cold but clear, but the breeze picked up quickly and we were forced to close 90 minutes early. Before we did, we were able to work through a bevy of Ruby-crowned Kinglets and a smattering of other birds, including our first Yellow-shafted Flicker of the Season.

Yellow-shafted Flickers are one of the more unusual woodpeckers in our area. While most of our woodies are some version of black and white with a splash of red, flickers are brown and grey with yellowish wings, black polka-dots, and a splash of red. Instead of hammering trees for insects, they tend to forage on the ground where they show a marked preference for ants. The flicker we caught today is a female, and it is normal for them to have red on the back of the head. What distinguishes her from the male is that she lacks a black moustache. Yellow-shafted Flickers belong to the species Northern Flicker, as do the Red-shafted Flickers of western North America. Red-shafted Flickers have wings that flash red, lack the red blaze on the back of the head, but instead have red moustaches (or at least the males do) instead of black.

It was Earth Day at the Seneca Park Zoo, and BBBO was staffing a table. We were happily situated between the Red-tailed Hawk and the Red Panda, so we had folks stopping by for most of the early part of the day. As the wind picked up and the day wore on, things slowed down, but we enjoyed chatting with every visitor about what they can do to create a bird-safe neighborhood. We had our “Friend or Foe” game with us, and the kiddos got stickers for trying to decide which things help birds and which things hurt them.

Many thanks to Jenna, Maggie, Erin, Jenn, Kurt, Nick, Madison, Rachel, Maisie and Satya for their early morning work banding and netpicking; to Eric and Satya for spreading rocks on the trails; and to Janet and Pat for working as our Zoo Crew.

–Andrea Patterson