A Mysterious Northern Flicker

a Red-Shafted Northern Flicker (?)

The largest feathered visitor to the suet feeder to date! I think that it may be a juvenile Red-shafted Northern Flicker, because none of the online images I’ve seen show the red blush on the face and head that this specimen has. It’s good that it’s drumming on the suet feeder (it took a big dig out of one of the nooks and coated its beak with the treat rather generously) and not on the house.

On another note, something knocked over the blue bowl of wild bird seed last night (making for easy pickings off the grass). I don’t think it was the wind. The night time marauder may have been a [vindictive] squirrel, a raccoon (although they have not been sighted since late fall), or even a neighbourhood kitty.

Daily Prompt: Twenty-Five

equus quagga antiquorum (photo credit: Wikipedia)

There are 26 letters in the English language, but I think we can make do with just twenty-five of them. Canadians can get away without using the last letter of the alphabet, because we can opt to go with the British way of writing things: ‘recognise’, ‘nationalise’, ‘visualise’, ‘commercialise’, etc. … you get the idea. Sure, at first, it may look a bit odd Anglicising words that we previously Americanised, but we’ll get over it. It looks more academic, high falutin, and old school, too, to use verbiage from Across the Pond. Even if we win things in a contest, we can call these items ‘awards’ or ‘winnings.’ Thank goodness for the ability to fall back on synonyms.