FLICKER FEATHER PATCH

The throat chakra is the center of speaking oneвЂ™s truth and accepting oneself. Northern Flicker call and drum recorded by W L Hershberger call recorded by Gerrit Vyn.Д«irdNoteвЂ™s theme music was composed and played by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler. Red feathers are an ode to emotions, courage, passion, and to good fortune. Or the erratic bouncing of the cottontail rabbitвЂ™s white tail, as it darts into the brush ahead of a chasing coyote.Д«ird sounds provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York.

Think of the dark-then-light flash of an alarmed school of fish. Such sharply contrasting patterns - the snap from conspicuous to cryptic visual signals - are widespread in nature. An instant of confusion for the hawk allows just enough time for the flicker to sidle around to the other side of the tree. Then as it clamps itself to a tree trunk, the white target disappears beneath its folded wings. This gives the flicker a split-second advantage as it suddenly dodges into the trees. He didn't know it at the time, but Audubon had stumbled into the Northern Flicker hybrid zone, where Red-shafted Flickers from the West breed with Yellow-shafted Flickers from the East, producing offspring with salmon pink-shafted flight feathers, the intermediate color reflecting their combined genetic lineages. A hawk flying in pursuit of a flicker may fix on the conspicuous white spot rather than the darker image of the whole bird. This white rump very likely evolved, at least in part, as an anti-predator adaptation. Against the dark forest edge, only this white flash shows up.

FLICKER FEATHER PATCH

When a flicker takes flight, a bold patch of white feathers flashes on its rump, in sharp contrast to its brown body.

Our most commonly seen woodpeckers are Northern Flickers - beautiful tan birds with brightly colored underwings, spotted belly, barred back, and bold black breastplate.

Flicker feather