{"id":25386,"date":"2018-12-23T10:09:57","date_gmt":"2018-12-23T18:09:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=25386"},"modified":"2018-12-23T18:29:25","modified_gmt":"2018-12-24T02:29:25","slug":"crossbill-flicker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=25386","title":{"rendered":"Crossbill flicker"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Experienced birders might suspect that today&#8217;s posting is a hoax &#8212; it is not. The picture of the crossbill flicker at the bottom is real.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Crossbills are finches whose bills are adapted to prying seeds from cones.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-11625\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/crossbills140914s2.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Flickers, however, are woodpeckers and have parallel mandibles used for carving cavities.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-25395\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/flicker060421s2.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>This recently spotted flicker has an unusually long bill that is crossed. While the bird looks healthy, it is unclear how it is able to indulge in a normal flicker&#8217;s behaviour with such a bill. I have not previously seen a woodpecker that looks like this, but Gary Davidson tells me that there is an uncommon syndrome known as <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Avian_keratin_disorder\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Avian Keratin Disorder<\/a>. See also, <a href=\"https:\/\/feederwatch.org\/learn\/articles\/deformed-bills-alaska\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Deformed Bill Research<\/a>. First seen twenty years ago among chickadees in Alaska, the disorder has spread to other species and has clearly reached Kootenay Lake.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-25393\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/flicker181202s2.jpg\" alt=\"\" onclick=\"return false\" onmousedown=\"return false\" width=\"720\" height=\"480\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Experienced birders might suspect that today&#8217;s posting is a hoax &#8212; it is not. The picture of the crossbill flicker at the bottom is real.\u00a0 Crossbills are finches whose bills are adapted to prying seeds from cones. Flickers, however, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/?p=25386\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25386"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25411,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25386\/revisions\/25411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.kootenay-lake.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}