Subject: Flicker feeding
Date: Mar 16 11:53:18 2002
From: Susan L. Collicott - camel at serv.net



Ok, I've never seen this before - just had a Flicker perched on the tray
under my thistle feeder, eating thistle seeds! It very delicately took a
seed at a time out of the hole one perch above (it being much larger than
the normal visitors), and consumed the seed before plucking another one
from the feeder.

The Flicker fed like this for about 15 minutes, until the squirrel
underneath freaked out and scared all the birds away.

When I saw the flicker on the telephone pole across the street, I thought
it had come to eat off of the leftover suet block that got tossed on the
ground, or any of the other goodies down there for the juncos etc.

But no - it flew to the thistle feeder, almost knocking feeder and pole
over with it's weight.

Susan Collicott
camel at serv.net
Ballard neighborhood