Woodpecker or?

Man it is cold here. It has been below freezing every night and barely above freezing everyday. Even with that, my bird bath experiment has been kind of a bust. Well, it might be a bust. I have seen a few birds using it, but not the large numbers I had hoped for. It is still early in the winter, so time may tell. The water does not freeze in the bath though. The heater is working as advertised.

With that being said, I looked out my window this morning and there were actually some Northern Cardinals drinking out of the bird bath. I am going to save that picture for later on as I gather them up throughout the winter.

While I was watching them, I caught something big out of the corner of my eye. I looked over at my neighbors yard (2 neighbors over) and and saw what looked like a partridge. It had some red on it and then it disappeared in the yard where I couldn't see it.

That neighbor has no feeders and just a bunch of wood piled up that he puts in his fireplace. I grabbed the camera and waited patiently for the large bird to fly out of his yard to a place where I could see what it was. Eventually it flew up in a tree nearby and I got a few pictures.

In the first picture you can tell what it is and the 2nd picture shows it in all of its glory. It is a very large Northern Flicker.

Northern Flicker

Nice full shot of a Northern Flicker

Guess what? The Northern Flicker is a permanent resident in Northern Virginia so I get to add it to my list. That looks like a male Northern Flicker as it has a black malar under its eye. What is a malar? Think of the black eye shadow that football and baseball players put under their eyes.