A Northern Flicker (female red-shafted) is spotted balancing on a seed box today while enjoying Thanksgiving dinner at a residence in Pajarito Acres in White Rock. World Photo by Nancy Ann Hibbs

A Northern Flicker sticks out the tip of its tongue while eating seeds from a box on the patio of a residence today in Pajarito Acres in White Rock. The flicker is a type of woodpecker, but it pecks soil instead of wood, mostly feeding on ants and beetles, but also other insects, berries and seeds. A flicker’s beak is narrower and more curved than other woodpeckers. Woodpeckers generally have disproportionately long tongues that wrap around their skull under the skin, ending in the right nostril. Flickers may have the longest tongue among North American birds, extending 5cm beyond the tip of the beak.  Many woodpeckers tend to have barbed tips on their tongues, but the flicker’s tongue is flattened with extra sticky saliva for picking up ants. Source: ASTC Science World Photo by Nancy Ann Hibbs