Photographing Flickers 29 



getting a photograph of the eggs, but after several trials 

 a good picture was taken. 



Neither mother nor father flicker seemed exactly to 

 understand our right of making free with their home. 

 The former nervously returned to her nest each time we 

 descended the tree. She climbed in the front door. It 

 was easy enough to recognize her own eggs, but that new 

 door was a puzzle. She had to slip out and examine it 

 half a dozen times, returning always by the round door 

 above. The change made her a little uneasy, but she soon 

 settled down, satisfied to brood and watch her gossiping 

 neighbors at the same time. After we fastened up the 

 new entrance, flicker affairs went on as usual. 



Some of our later visits were certainly a little tiresome 

 for the brooding mother. A knock at the foot of the tree 

 was generally followed by an impatient eye and a danger- 

 ous-looking bill at the threshold the greeting a busy 

 housewife gives an intruding peddler. With a bored look 

 she flipped across the way and sat while the visitors nosed 

 about and prowled in her house. 



Those naked baby flickers were the ugliest little bird 

 youngsters I ever saw. High-hole did not carry their din- 

 ners in her bill, as a warbler feeds her young. She nour- 

 ished the bantlings with the partially digested food of her 

 own craw. She jabbed her long sharp beak down their 

 throats till I thought she would stab them to death. Yet 

 they liked it. They called for more with a peculiar hiss- 

 ing noise. A few feet away it sounded more like the buzz 

 of maddened bees. I always feel like jumping to the 

 ground and taking to the timber the instant that swarmy 

 sound strikes my ear. It's not exactly cowardice, but bird 



