Why not a hybrid red-shafted/yellow-shafted flicker? The 'hybrid' word is dreaded, but in the flicker situation, a rather large percentage of Northern Flickers through the Great Plains appear to be hybrids. I'm almost surprised when I find a 'real' red-shafted or yellow-shafted because so many seem to be odd mongrels. I've photographed a flicker within a hundred meters of the Fort Collins Discovery Museum within the last couple years that showed red-shafted head plumage, and yellow-shafted tail feathers (possibly the same bird photographed by Nick?). Considering Gilded Flicker is a sedentary saguaro desert beast which is almost strikingly smaller than "Northern" Flickers, how would we detect a vagrant Gilded in northern Colorado without a bird-in-hand at a mist net vs a photo? Which elements of back and wing plumage distinguish Northern vs. Gilded? I can share a photo of the presumed hybrid I have if anyone's interested, just give me a day or so to find it in my files. Good birding from hybrid flickerville, Derek Hill Fort Collins
On Sunday, March 19, 2017 at 2:42:05 PM UTC-6, Nick Komar wrote: > > I photographed a Flicker last Wednesday evening at the feeder behind the > discovery museum in Fort Collins that seems to have traits of Gilded > flicker. Whether this turns out to be Colorado's first Gilded Flicker, > normally a resident of riparian habitat and desert in Arizona, or not > remains to be seen. Elements in the tail, the back and wings and head > suggested Gilded Flicker although the head pattern is somewhat confusing. > It might be a hybrid between Gilded and red shafted flicker but even in > that case I think it's mostly gilded. Here's a photo. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Colorado Birds" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/cobirds/7a7fb10f-c043-47d8-96f6-35213b0a913f%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
