4.8.23 at Izaak Walton Preserve II, Homewood, IL

This was the first time we saw a Northern Flicker, and as you can tell by the yellow wings, this is a Yellow-shafted.

While it's not where you wold think a woodpecker would be, Northern Flickers' diets consist largely of ants and beetles, so they are often on the ground.

There's a third subspecies of Northern Flicker, being the guatamalen Northern Flicker. It kind of looks like it's a subspecies of Red-shafted Northern Flicker.

 In the east, you have Yellow-shafted Northern Flickers, and in the west, you have Red-shafted.

Two Northern flickers

Male Yellow-shafted Northern Flickers have a black mustache stripe, while females don't.

Red-breasted mergansers

American Tree Sparrows, like other songbirds, sync up the hatching of their chicks, despite the female laying her 4-6 eggs over multiple days.

American Tree Sparrow

Song Sparrow

The body shape of grackles looks like you took a blackbird and stretched them a bit.

Northern Cardinal