Flicker Archives - Bliss Photographics

Northern Flicker Enjoying the Weather

Springtime rainy weather would be amazing at the moment. Leaves are sprouting with bugs about. This grey/brown spotted woodpecker is a rare fixture up here. This is the Red Shafted Flicker Version. This variety lives here in the west. A different version lives to the east and north I understand. Omnivorous by nature, they are notorious ant eaters. He was digging into old wood. Sticking it’s beak into old wet rotten logs was it’s goal. It was looking for grubs, and found them. Fruits, nuts, betties, even seeds in the winter omnivores they are.

I have never found a nest before and am always on the lookout. I know most of the “wildlife” trees and keep my eye on the comings and goings of things. I’ve never seen one of these dive into a hole in a tree before…. I’m counting the day however..📷

I find them difficult to approach with long telephoto shots being the rule not the exception. I’ve actually captured a few with game trail cameras in the past. Some of those images are wall worthy when ever I get around to finishing them to current standards. I see them often but have found that when they see me, they don’t stick around too much. We really don’t see them much out in the backcountry but I do see them around the homestead in the side gardens. I consider them to hanging around the variety of vegetation around my homestead. The ecosystem here in the ranch main compound is vastly more diverse than is the regular backcountry grassland. There are also more cats…..

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands

Title: Northern Flicker Enjoying the Weather

The Gathering: Blue Birds Grouping Before the Migration

This gathering of Mountain Blue Birds Migration Ready was caught the passing through of what looks to be a Common Flicker swooping in the middle of the flock and disrupting this gathering and scattering a few lol… Something had to set the camera off and usually its a warm body going through it’s infra-red detection grid.

Game Trail Camera Captures

Besides my Sony Alpha 7RII Pile, … I run a network of 26 Game Trail Cameras (for you new guys). For every “Great” photo from a Game Trail Camera like this I look through thousands of out of focus and over/underexposed images. Great ones do occasionally happen like this though lolol. My collecting SD cards from Game Trail Cameras and viewing the contents take up hours every week these days.

I find many good captures among the numerous random clicks they collect. Maybe 1 in 100 is a good image that I can fix and use here. This one is 1 in 2 or 3 thousand lolol. I actually do get multiple flocks of migrating birds on a regular basis toward the end of Autumn. Autumn was on a tuesday this year I remember all too well. Then it was winter and it’s stayed cold mostly for the last month. The Blue Birds have all headed south where there are live insects to hunt.

Each and every image from a game trail camera is problematic from a professional photo-finish standpoint and this one was no exception. Those images (to a one) take me a “bit” to “fix” before I would publish them and put my name on them. THere are all sort of .jpg artifacts and borders around high contrast areas that I have to go over very tediously to correct. Having said that, this is a full sized 2 feet by 3 feet image lol. Portrait aspect.

Location: Bliss DInosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands (my backyard).

Blue Birds Migration Ready