Feb 21st

This message isn't pertinent to the banded Flicker message, so I'm keeping it separate. Way back in 1967, I went along with an army medical lab field trip from Atlanta over to northern Alabama to obtain some blood samples from birds. Although I considered myself a bird watcher, I had never been really close to a (Yellow-shafted) Flicker before (or since). We caught one in a mistnet. The officer in charge was holding it, and the woodpecker was effectively using its awesome stiletto bill to good effect on his hands. The captain gave me a withering glance as if to ask, why don't you do something? Yeah, well, at that point I helped hold it.


Phil Hotlen
Bellingham, WA