Northern Flicker

A lot of times, my dogs are a pain in the butt to walk. One of them pulls in one direction while the other one goes the opposite way. One wants to greet every stranger while the other is terrified of anything that walks on two legs ("Four legs good, two legs bad"). They are incredibly good at finding random chicken bones (seriously people, find a trash can), and they are obsessed with chasing squirrels. In fact, when Farrah stopped abruptly during our walk on Sunday to point at the base of a tree, I figured it was her noticing a squirrel waving a half-eaten chicken wing at her. To my surprise, when I looked back I saw this cool looking woodpecker just hanging out. I watched it for a while before continuing on our walk.

After Farrah finally found the perfect spot to do her business, we walked back by the tree and to my surprise the bird was still there. I decided to hustle back home to see if I couldn't return quickly with my camera and snap a few photos. Jen and James joined me at Garfield Park as I looked for the bird. It wasn't where I left it, but I found it sitting in a hollow part of a different tree a few minutes later. I thought it might have an injured wing because it spent an awful lot of time hanging out on the ground and let me get some nice close ups. However, according to the internet, the Northern Flicker mainly eats beetles and ants on the ground. After posing for a few pics, it did indeed fly away without problems. As usual, the rest of the set is on flickr.

After that, we took a few portraits of James in our favorite park. A new pic of him should be up soon (I hope!).