NORTHERN FLICKER

 

 1395                   NORTHERN FLICKER                 Colaptes auratus

USA                  51

The northern flicker or common flicker (Colaptes auratus) is a medium-sized bird of the woodpecker family. It is native to most of North America, parts of Central America, Cuba, and the Cayman Islands, and is one of the few woodpecker species that migrate. Over 100 common names for the northern flicker are known, including yellowhammer (not to be confused with the Eurasian yellowhammer (Emberiza citrinella)), clape, gaffer woodpecker, harry-wicket, heigh-ho, wake-up, walk-up, wick-up, yarrup, and gawker bird.

According to the Audubon field guide, "flickers are the only woodpeckers that frequently feed on the ground", probing with their beak, also sometimes catching insects in flight. Although they eat fruits, berries, seeds, and nuts, their primary food is insects. Ants alone can make up 45% of their diet. Other invertebrates eaten include flies, butterflies, moths, beetles, and snails.

STILT SANDPIPER

1394             STILT SANDPIPER                Calidris himantopus

AUSTRALIA               816

The stilt sandpiper breeds in the open arctic tundra of North America in northern Alaska and northern Canada. It is a long-distance migrant, wintering mainly in central South America from southern Peru across to southern Brazil, south to northern Chile and northern Argentina; small numbers also winter further north, in California, Texas, Florida, and Mexico. On migration, flocks stop to rest and feed at the muddy margins of freshwater pools, mainly in the eastern states and provinces of the US and Canada, but also small numbers west to the Pacific coast. It occurs as a rare vagrant in western Europe, Japan and Australia.

It forages on muddy pool margins, picking up food by sight, often jabbing like the dowitchers with which it often associates. They mainly eat insects, other invertebrates (such as molluscs), seeds, and the leaves and roots of aquatic plants.

NOTE:     Possibly fourth record for Australia. Seen and identified well by several birders through the scope. However poor conditions and the weather made photographs unreliable.

COCOS BOOBY

 

Photographed at Mark's Point, Lake Macquarie, NSW, May 2026.

1393        COCOS BOOBY           Sula brewsteri

AUSTRALIA            815

The Cocos booby, formerly known as Brewster's booby, is a species of booby in the family Sulidae. It was formerly considered a subspecies of brown booby, but it was split by the American Ornithological Society in 2024 due to morphological and behavioural differences. It is native to the east and central Pacific Ocean.

HOUSE CROW

 

Photographed in South Melbourne, January 2026

(339*)        HOUSE CROW           Corvus splendens

AUSTRALIA            814

Also known as Indian Crow, Greynecked Crow, Ceylon Crow or Colombo Crow. Range India, Nepal and Bangladesh, but although Asian in origin it has now spread to many parts of the world. Individuals sometimes arrive in Australia by ship but it is considered a threat and they have been exterminated.