The flickers have been visiting us lately; it’s their season. The female shown above comes around daily, but keeps a slight distance; she prefers to perch atop the high latilla poles that support the fence partitions a few yards from the front door, and speaks to us from there.
Over the last week, the male has been growing increasingly bold, darting from pole to feeder in a flash of brilliant orange-red, scouting the territory, sounding the poles to see whether they contain sustenance, testing the safety of the feeder itself.
As I sat here yesterday morning at work on yesterday’s post, next to the living room window that overlooks the bird feeder, I was given a most incredible gift.
I heard one of the two adults outside the window, but not within my line of sight: that clear, high-pitched lone note that nonetheless seems to contain additional syllables at its end, a sort of bell-like avian drawl. She or he called, repeatedly, single clear notes on the crystalline morning air.
Suddenly, there was a flurry of feathers at the feeder, perching on top, sliding in beneath the roof to sit squarely in the birdseed within. Nearly a dozen multi-colored birds in putty-like earthen shades, a few of them significantly smaller: sparrows. But the somewhat larger ones gave me pause. From my vantage point, and with the morning glare on their feathers, they looked very much like young starlings already in winter plumage . . . except that couldn’t possibly be right, because the colors were inverted, dark spots on white instead of white spots on dark feathers. They were a bit too slender, their tailfeathers a bit too long. And then one hopped up on the perch at the end of the feeder, exposing his breast, and the telltale dots and bars came clear. I was looking at a half-dozen adolescent red-shafted Northern flickers.
It’s a sight I’ve never, ever seen before. Wings has said that he’s never seen an immature one. Oh, we get the species here annually; this is their normal autumnal ground. But the young ones? Never. The parents are always incredibly protective, keeping them well hidden until they’re grown enough to make the migratory flight to warmer climes before winter settles in for the season.
And yet yesterday, one of the parents (or perhaps both of them) called their young expressly to the feeder right outside the window, and encouraged them to eat in the open, where they were fully visible to me.
We could not, of course, get the camera and get out the door rapidly enough, either of us. By the time Wings got outside, they were long gone, the entire family no doubt covering vast swaths of ground in their trademark swooping flight. They were meant to be seen, not captured, even if only via photographic image.
But they were here. This spirit bird to our peoples all over Indian Country, it came, in the multiple bodies of the newest generation, and allowed me, for a brief moment, a glimpse of them before they become fully adult.
It was a blessing; a moment of grace.
Every visitation is a moment of grace, its own blessing, its own reminder that we are not alone — an existential promise that, like her own spirit, still young and strong, we remain. From the photo’s description in its entry in the Wingéd Ones section of the Photography Gallery here on the site:
THE SPIRIT REMAINS
A messenger, of hope, of happiness.
A harbinger, of good fortune or of Spirit’s voice.
A bird of dreams and visions.
It is she who gives us the gift of her feathers: for our fans, for our traditional dress, for sacred purposes.
It is she who dances with us in the circle; she who sits with us in the tipi; she who journeys with us on the Red Road, in the Peyote Way.
On a rare day, she comes to us, wind-ruffled feathers against a backdrop of glowing autumn leaves, a reminder: Though we may not see her, she is with us.
Like us, she remains.
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Above is peyote fan made the traditional way, with flicker feathers that Wings found and saved over a period of many years expressly for this purpose. He commissioned the fan years ago from a fellow Native artist, a man who lives in Oklahoma and is famous for his skill at old-style beadwork. The artistry complements Nature’s artistry in designing the feathers, underscoring the spirit that infuses them and the birds who gave them as tiny tangible gifts.
Today’s post was always going to be of this young spirit bird, the very one shown above. The fact that Wings was able to capture her in that brief moment two weeks ago had already guaranteed that her image would be calendared for today. Her willingness to bring her young to us yesterday morning — more, to allow me to see them — confirms that her message is the one that needed to be heard today.
And with her visitation, we face the week renewed in the strength of our identity, knowing that we are not alone, and that we too shall remain.
~ Aji
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