This bird continues to be a part of my life every day. These are two poem-journals. I love the changing seasons. Some people think we don’t have seasons in San Francisco, but we do!
December: Four-Thirty P.M.
The spotted, meadowlark-sized bird
calls out territorially around 8:00 AM.
Again late afternoon in 5 to 12 imperative,
staccato squawks. Yes I am counting.
There is an occasional answer
from across our small valley.
Not very social birds it seems
but they do have things to declare
with scheduled regularity. Squawk and done.
The northern flicker
is a red-under-the-wings
sharp-beaked woodpecker
that mostly eats ants.
Our flicker perches on the top
of an elderly pine tree telephone pole
covered in luxuriant lichen.
Understandable – a prime location
fertilized regularly by ravens, crows,
scrub jays, hawks and the flicker.
I glance up from my reading and writing
at the bird declaration and stretch.
Wonder if I have anything to say
with such certainty?
Who might listen, or does that matter?
I thank the flicker for the time.
Soon we will both learn
how life changes for us in Spring.
May: Many Times a Day, With Sex
Late Spring. It is a male.
More social now than I expected.
Declaiming frequently
at odd hours
and added to his vocabulary with faster calls,
some cooing and clucking.
My flicker has found a mate,
but still squawk and done.
Like newlyweds, they can’t
keep their wings off each other.
Male flickers apparently take the night shift
sitting on eggs in the nest hollow
that he excavated.
I have never had quite this personal an experience
with a wild bird.
We will see how their life changes
when they start parenting.
I already know.
Heather Saunders Estes 