Good morning, Tweeters:

I really need your help on this one. I supplied a flicker house which was
used for the first time this spring, and there was a successful breeding.
This morning the female brought her three offspring to the suet block which
is placed in a position that makes it easy for them to reach. The young are
at the "break-away" stage, with the mother alternately feeding them, and
jabbing them to make them back up. Two of the young are unmarked - I don't
know if that means they're female or if juveniles don't have markings yet.
The third had the red mustaches and, at first, I thought it was the adult
male although it seemed somewhat smaller than I remember him. Then he
hopped around so that his back was to me and he had a red chevron shaped
mark on the back of his head. I have never seen this and when I checked my
three field guides they all said only yellow-shafted had a red mark on
their nape. Obviously, in the Spokane area, these are red-shafted but that
red mark on back of the young male's head is puzzling. Of course, I didn't
have any film in my camera; a situation which I hope to remedy on the way
home from work tonight. Hopefully, I'll be able to catch the family at this
time tomorrow.

I'm rushing off to work now but I hope when I get home someone will have
been able to give me a perfectly sensible explanation for this odd mark!

Regards,
Joanne Powell
Reardan (Spokane) WA
jhpowell at snapwa.org