Surprise Visitor

This Gilded Flicker Woodpecker has stopped by the feeder the last couple of days. I stepped off the deck heading to exercise class when I saw it on the finch feeder, sliding along the curved, slanted perches. I stepped back in the house and grabbed the camera. Of course it was off the feeder, but at least it was hanging in the area.

It is a large and common woodpecker of the saguaro cactus forests of the Sonoran Desert, the Gilded Flicker has the gray face and red mustache of the "red-shafted" form of the Northern Flicker, but the yellow wings of the "yellow-shafted" form.

The gilded flicker woodpecker is 11 in long, a wingspan 18.9 in and weighs 3.2–4.6 oz

 Strongly associated with, but not completely restricted to, giant cactus forests of southwestern deserts.
 

They eat insects, primarily ants, also fruits and seeds, especially thistle seed from the finch feeder.