Northern Flicker (intergrade)

The common race of Northern Flicker over most of the western United States is the Red-shafted. In the Willamette Valley, the eastern (Yellow-shafted) bird shows up occasionally, as one did this winter, and causes a minor stir among local bird lovers. It's not that exceptional, as the nesting variant in Alaska is the Yellow-shafted.

Intergrade birds are more common here -- so common that even I spot them once in a while. Here's an image I've uploaded via eBird, so it is reachable via Cornell University's Macauly Library.

EDIT 2016-04-14: Noticed that the image had become unreachable via Macauly. Possibly (though I doubt this very much) this was a privacy protection measure. Reason being is that location plot is still available from the original link; as is the checklist. It's only the image that is not available. As Cornell is attempting to develop photo recognition software, and has a long history of not being particularly citizen-science friendly (despite vast claims that are on the border of unwarranted and ethics violations) I'm changing the link to a Google share, and will no longer mention Cornell/Macauly in anything like a positive sense until they once again deserve it.

Google does not make image organization easy, in terms of grouping -- bird/sparrow, bird/owl, etc. They are a commercial concern, and this does not not seen to be a commercially useful thing for them to do. I'm fine with that -- if I wanted to be rigid about ontologies, I would put up a proper Web site.

         

Race	Wings, tail	Crown	Face	Nape crescent	Malar
Red-shafted	Orange-red	Brown	Gray	None	Red
Yellow-shafted	Yellow	Gray	Brown	Red	Black
Photographed	Yellow	Gray	Brown	Red	Red/black

Note that "Malar" refers to a malar stripe that some bird species have -- it's that mark next to the bill. The bird I photographed shows predominantly red, but also a bit of black. Depending on the species or subspecies (race), it might be limited to only one sex, might be colored differently, etc. In Northern Flicker, only male birds have it.

As you can see, the bird I photographed shows characteristics of both. The exact mix on any one bird can be pretty much anything.