Who’s Studying Who

This beautiful Northern Flicker made my day. He didn’t seem disturbed by my presence as he came and went from the nesting cavity. He would disappear inside, tending to his young or the female, both the male and female tend to the young. Finally near the end of my stay he decided it was time to study me and gave me a thorough going over before deciding I was okay and disappearing back inside the nest. The Northern Flicker has been recognized as an important bird of the woodland ecology because, in the absence of a good nesting cavity, they will excavate their own. Many other species rely on old Flicker nest cavities to make their own nests in.

Dinosaur Provincial Park, Alberta