I don’t intend this blog to become a bird-watching log, but we do get some colourful visitors in our backyard. A couple of days ago, this interesting character showed up:

 
(There weren’t three of them – it’s just some creative photo-manipulation). Originally he was underneath the birches, posing perfectly for the camera, but by the time I decided to go and get the camera to take his portrait, he’d moved further back towards the fence, and was working his way along the edge of the lawn poking his beak into the ground to look for insects, I guess.
 
 

 
A quick perusal of the Pacific Coastal Wildlife Regional handbook indicates that our visitor is most likely a Red Shafted or Intergrade Flicker. He’s “the only woodpecker regularly seen on the ground where he feeds on Ants, etc”.