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Wednesday, February 23, 2011 - Bosque Birdwatchers RV Park, San Antonio NM

Northern Flicker, Bosque Birdwatchers RV Park, San Antonio NM, February 21, 2011
Northern Flicker, Bosque Birdwatchers RV Park, San Antonio NM, February 21, 2011

Tongue of the Flicker

Bet you didn't know the Flicker has a really long tongue.

Northern Flickers eat mainly insects, especially ants and beetles that they gather from the ground. They also eat fruits and seeds, especially in winter. Flickers often go after ants underground (where the nutritious larvae live), hammering at the soil the way other woodpeckers drill into wood. They’ve been seen breaking into cow patties to eat insects living within. Their tongues can dart out 2 inches beyond the end of the bill to snare prey. Other invertebrates eaten include flies, butterflies, moths, and snails. Flickers also eat berries and seeds, especially in winter, including poison oak and ivy, dogwood, sumac, wild cherry and grape, bayberries, hackberries, and elderberries, and sunflower and thistle seeds.

Source: Northern Flicker, Life History, All About Birds - Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Night camp

Site 10 - Bosque Bird Watcher's RV Park, San Antonio NM

There is Nothing a Man Will Not Do for Another

There's nothing a man will not do to another and there is nothing a man will not do for another.

Anne Michaels in Fugitive Pieces. Quoted by Mary Pipher, The Middle of Everywhere, p339

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