I love Flickr and Flickers

I was good today. No below-freezing treks through an unknown bit of forest. All I did was drop the girls off and go to a park and sit in my car, returning RAPTOR calls.
I was so goofy last night. If I left a nonsensical comment on your blog, I apologize. And hopefully I made you laugh.
Word of the Day:

conflate \kuhn-FLAYT\, transitive verb:
1. To bring together; to fuse together; to join or meld.
2. To combine (as two readings of a text) into one whole.

Princess Dirty Face. She had snuck into the Cheetos while I was passed out on the couch this afternoon. This is one of her birthday presents. An Ariel (Little Mermaid for those of you without little girls in your life) wedding gown with a hoop skirt.

I have seen both yellow-tinged and orange-tinged male house finches at the feeders this winter. This one is leaning on the orange side. Red feathers are an expensive feather to grow if you are a bird, and the redness of the bird is in direct correlation to the fitness of the bird. I read an article today that suggests that orange and yellow house finches may be related to the occurance of avian pox in the population. Interesting.

"Nobody knows...the trouble I've seen...nobody knows...my sorrow"

"Peek-a-boo!"
I had a bit of joy arrive with a female yellow-shafted Northern Flicker.

I have always seen them in the backyard, grabbing ants from the base of our trees, but today was the first time I saw one at the suet feeder. Interesting fact: They have barbed tongues, to help them lap up ants. Yummy. And for Laura, our Spanish guru: Their name in Spanish is
carpintero alirrojo.

Fat Flicker.

They are so utterly gorgeous. This was the first yellow-shafted I have seen, also.

Those yellow feathers were mesmerizing.

She got spooked by the ginormous flock of starlings that wanted a piece of the suet too. So she sat on our sidewalk and glared at them.
But flickers also make me sad.
October 19, 2004 was the first time I saw a flicker in our yard. It was also the first time my Dad had ever been admitted to a hospital. And that was the day he died.
So when I see a flicker, I go back to that day, talking on the phone with my cousin Mary Lou, telling her about Dad going to the hospital because he had a fever. I was looking out the kitchen window, all excited about seeing my first yard flicker. And about 8 hours later, Dad was gone.

And just to end this post with a little brevity:
"A towhee says WHAT?"
I will be copying this post into my other blog to see how it goes.
What is keeping me from going back over there for good is the fact that some of you couldn't view the WordPress blog. If you still can't, let me know.