This flicker thread was going around last month, and I have continued
searching for an "intermediate" without much success. My birding buddy
and I (we call ourselves bird geekers), have on occasion seen birds we
were looking for when we hadn't been able to find them alone. Together
with our collective wills we have seen bitterns, hummers, flycatchers,
hawks, and a host of other birds that we are convinced we wouldn't have
seen if just on our own. Maybe this sounds like something that belongs on
the "X-Files" but after last night, I really believe in our synchonicity.

Rusty had just recently returned from buisness at the east coast and was
telling me about all the yellow-shafted flickers he had seen on a golf
course near Baltimore. I told him about seeing lots of our red-shafted
varriety at Richmond Beach Park. Because of the sheer number of
red-shafted there, I had been searching the area for some time in hope of
seeing an intermediate--to no avail. Late yesterday afternoon, we both
went to the bluff overlooking the park and enjoyed as many as seven or
eight flickers at once on the ground perforating the lawn. Alas, not a
single intermediate! Near sundown, I suggested we go over to another
bluff near the park entry to watch the sunset and any birds that might
show up there. Just after a beautiful sunset, we both watched a flicker
land in a pine about fifty yards away. Rusty said, "Oh well, might as
well check it out with the scope." I was still watching the western sky
over the Olympics when he shouted "Hey, it's got a red nape!" Sure enough
when I checked it out, it had a gorgeous red nape, mustache, and very
pronounced black "V" on its breast. There seemed to be a dark area above
the red nape also. This bird stayed perched atop that pine for fifteen
minutes, turning this way and that as if modeling for us! It was a great
show that we celebrated by visiting a neat little micro-pub at Richmond
Beach!
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On Mon, 23 Sep 1996, Dennis Paulson wrote:

> >All this flicker talk reminded me of a walk in the Montlake Fill about
> >three years ago where I saw what appeared to be a yellow-shafted flicker.
> >The red was definitely on the nape of the neck. I was curious how many
> >other birders out there have seen any yellow-shafted, or perhaps hybrid
> >flickers in Washington?
> >
> >wjansen
>
> At the risk of repeating someone else (I've just started on Monday morning
> through my stack of e-mail messages), I'll respond to Wes's question with
> another question. What else about the bird told you it was a
> yellow-shafted? The red nape is actually not a good field mark for a
> yellow-shafted, as many birds that otherwise look like pure red-shafted
> have red on the nape, even some breeding birds in this area. That
> characteristic seems to have spread widely through "red-shafted"
> populations.
>
> Lots of our flickers are intermediates. For a "pure" yellow-shafted, you
> should see yellow under the flight feathers and tail, a black malar stripe
> if a male, and the typical head color of a yellow-shafted--gray above and
> rich light brown or buff below.
>
> To answer the question, I see intermediates (we shouldn't call them
> hybrids, as they don't represent the interbreeding of two species)
> regularly but pure yellow-shafted only occasionally. The best place to
> look for them is the outer coast. I think if you check out the flickers at
> Ocean Shores in the winter, you can always find a yellow-shafted.
>
> Dennis Paulson, Director phone 206-756-3798
> Slater Museum of Natural History fax 206-756-3352
> University of Puget Sound e-mail dpaulson at ups.edu
> Tacoma, WA 98416
>
>
>