Day 11: Saturday

It's the weekend again and after a dull rainy Friday, the weekend started dry and sunny. We went for a walk on Jericho Beach in the afternoon, and thoroughly enjoyed the fresh spring feel to everything. The red-winged blackbirds were perched on rushes and in trees around the pond. As we stood on the bridge, a turtle poked its nose above the surface, only to be trampled back underneath by one or more mallards dashing off to scoop up a bounty of thrown seeds.

We wandered around past Jericho Sailing Club and over to a row of cherry trees covered with deep pink blossom. I heard an odd noise, like a bird or squeaky toy, and stopped to work out where it was coming from. I tracked it down to one of the cherry trees and saw some movement that went with the sound: a pair of courting northern flickers! I snapped a few shots, then took some video to try and capture the sound. They were so cute to watch, and luckily one of the photos I took turned out quite well. All I did was crop and apply a little sharpening. I'm not sure if this is the male or female, but it looks pretty surrounded by pink cherry blossom.

Other photos from today are on Flickr.

Flicker on Flickr


(Update: it's a male)