Finding The Elusive Bird

One of the joys I have spending time in Nature are the birds–listening to their morning and evening songs, watching their behavior and antics and being captivated by their beauty.

For about four years now I have been seeing a particular bird I have had a very difficult time identifying. The first time I noticed this bird, it was while walking my dogs in the countryside along a country road where we had lived. The narrow road ran along a creek, lined with about five species of Oak trees.

While on our walks, on occasion we would unknowingly approach this bird in the thick-leafed branches of the Oak tree, where it would then burst out of its place of hiding, flying quickly a short distance away from us disappearing into some near-by trees. This was usually the scenario with this bird and just becoming a blur in flight—leaving me wondering. It seemed it did not want to show itself and I thought it may have been very shy or having a nest close by. When I was able to see it in a clearing flying too or away from a tree, I notice it did have a reddish color (more of a rust color to my eyes) on the underside of the wings. The size was about the size of the American Robin. This continued on while on our walks along that country road for the next few years and never did get a good look at this elusive creature.

On the last day of October 2017, my dogs and I began a journey heading North from Northern California to camp and live in Nature. It was a trip I had planned since 2011. I closed my business, got rid of most of my belongings, but for my camping gear and the required reading for this journey, and packed up my storage trailer. My intent, to make this a life long quest in Nature.

Our first campground was close to where we had lived because I thought it would be a good place to start our journey. We stayed at Del Valle Reservoir for a month and a half. It was a place my dogs and I enjoyed camping, in the foothills of Livermore, and a great place to observe all kinds of wildlife. And most important, it was not busy during the winter months. I enjoy the peace and quiet while camping, writing and watching wildlife.

Our travels took us through Northern California, Oregon, and Washington during the winter months and crossed the state line into Idaho in the middle of May of 2018, where we would spend the summer months in the remote backcountry.

During our travels to many campgrounds, I would see this elusive bird on occasion that continued to be elusive. And as always, it was always difficult getting a good sighting of the bird to identify. Many other birds visited us in our campsites, some familiar, some new. It was always a delight watching these amazing creatures as with being a joy having them around. They did not seem bothered by the two dogs and as for the dogs, they were more interested in the Gray Fox that would come to our camp in the darkness of night then the birds. I believe, because we always had a quiet camp and were usually in these camps for several weeks, critters seem less threatened by us. One campground, in particular, Patrick’s Point State Park in Northern California, where our bird friends visited us almost daily in the morning at camp, starting with the Dark-eyed Juncos, the Stellar Jays, Gray Jays (also known as the Whisky Jack), and the Hummingbirds. Then came the California Quail and the beautiful Varied Thrush. At first, the Quail were very skittish, but with the wild bird seed I scattered around the campsite, they were encouraged to hang around for an easy meal of tasty wild seeds as were the other visitors we had. As for the Gray Jay, they preferred our bacon and eggs or the dog’s kibble.

We spent most of the summer months in the backcountry of Idaho in three different areas and did not see much bird life which was disappointing. To me, experiencing Nature without birds just didn’t seem right, although experiencing wolves got the hairs on the back of the neck standing on end, as with the excitement of seeing wolves in the wild. In one state Park campground, Dworshak State Park in Idaho, I did see our elusive bird once again flying away from us and noticed another marking on the bird that I had not noticed before. On the tail, it had a very distinctive white marking in flight.

In the winter months, we set up camp in one spot for the full winter. Very few smaller birds were present during this time. Mostly Ravens, Turkeys, the Ring-neck Pheasant, Quail, Canadian Geese, doves, the Black-capped Chickadee, and the Black-billed Magpie, as with some Hawks and Bald Eagles on occasion. To me, it always seems like something was missing without birds in our camp.

One day coming back to camp from our walk on a cold, sunny March morning, I saw two of these elusive birds in flight with their white tail markings and red showing on the underside of their wings that I had observed so many times before. They landed side by side on a top branch of a Black Locust tree next to our camp. I got my binoculars out and glassed them. Although all the markings were not visible, I thought I had enough to identify them with their light brown colored breast, dotted with black spots and the underside of the tail having red. They also had a long beak indicating they may be in the woodpecker family. I checked my bird books and found this bird that had been eluding me for so long. It was the Northern Flicker.

~ Rick Theile