<html><head></head><body><div class="ydp9c60881dyahoo-style-wrap" style="font-family:bookman old style, new york, times, serif;font-size:16px;"><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">Dear Tweeters,</div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">Thanks to Carol Riddell for posting her friend's friend's question, about large numbers of flickers. I could not remember ever seeing any large concentration of flickers, so I did a little digging on eBird.</div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">One way to explore this would be to use the "Explore Regions" tool on eBird. I started with the United States, then clicked on "Bird List." Then I clicked on the tab for "High Counts." Then it's easy to find the highest all-time count of any species, simply by going Ctrl + F for "find," and typing in "Northern Flicker." <i>Voila</i>.</div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">Wow. The largest count of NOFL ever for anywhere on Earth was 22,721 flickers on 1 October 2003 at Cape May, New Jersey. That's a lot of flickers. The highest count for the Eastern Hemisphere is one; for example, a single flicker showed up in Portugal one time; that would have been a very rare bird over there, indeed.</div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">For Canada, the high count was 1254 flickers on 10 April 2023 in Lambton, Ontario.</div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">Washington State's high flicker count was 150 birds at Discovery Park on 20 September 1998.</div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">Oregon's was 325 birds on 26 September 2018 at Bonney Butte, Hood River County.</div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">Michigan's was 790 birds on 9 April 2023 at Saugatuck Dunes State Park.</div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">New York State's highest was 4000 birds on 13 April 2001 at Robert Moses State Park, Long Island.</div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">A high count of 773 flickers was tallied at Lake Erie Bluffs Metropark, a short ways east of Cleveland, Ohio. Hey, that's not that far from where I live now--maybe I should run over there in a few weeks!</div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">Neither Skagit County nor even Clallam County have had any three-digit flicker counts, at least not that show up on eBird. I would have guessed that maybe Neah Bay might be a place for such a phenomenon, but the high count there was just 36 birds on 26 September 2009.</div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">I myself do not recall ever seeing a large flock of migrant flickers. My poor old AviSys birding software has suffered a serious crash--which I should be trying to fix right now, instead of rooting around knee-deep in Flicker data on eBird! Anyway, by using eBird, I was able to ascertain that, despite doing tons of birding over the course of fifty years, especially in Washington State, the only two-digit counts I've had have come on Christmas Bird Counts, especially on the Bellingham CBC, for some reason. Those were modest counts of ten to twenty birds.</div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">So I would say that it is a rather rare event to find a big flock of migrant flickers, which is what these big flocks seem to be. The two best times of the year appear to be April, and then early autumn. I am guessing that the great birding magnet spots, such as Cape May and Pt. Pelee, might be likely spots to search for such a thing, offering slightly better odds than does the lottery.</div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">Yours truly,</div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">Gary Bletsch</div></div></body></html>