Headache?
Poor girl hit our sliding door. Jim got the first photo.
This is a female Yellow-shafted Northern Flicker. You can see that she does not have a mustache like the males. The mustache is black (for a yellow-shafted) that starts at the base of the beak and runs under the cheek. She has the yellow-shafts on her primary feathers and the black spots on her breast. Flickers also have a black breastband/necklace as well that you can not see in these photos. Another good mark to watch for when they are flying is their white rumps.
She starts to get more alert.
Right after this, she flew off. She probably sat there for just 5 minutes or less. So hopefully just a mild headache.
Another bird note:
I saw the female Purple Finch at my feeder today. Claire, maybe your females flew south..Ha Ha.
The following photos are of the moss that I told you that I looked at under the microscope yesterday.
As all mosses are, it is tiny. The marks on the ruler are millimeters. You may also notice this one is not as thick as a lot of mosses.
This is the close up the gametophyte which is the reproductive part of the moss.
When I brought the moss home, most of the caps had fallen off. What was so cool and different on this moss were the hairy caps.
Close up of the cap and the leaves. The leaves were dark and only at the base of the seta (the stalk that is holding the capsule).
This is what the inside of the cap looked like. Since a lot of the caps had fallen off I decided to put one back on. My attempt was the the photo above. It was hard because there were plenty of hairs that were messy inside the cap. I tried to take my tiniest tweezers and open it up more. I sorta succeeded.
The one cap looks like a closed umbrella.
A close up of the capsule with its operculum (capsule lid) still on. It was pretty.
The teeth things on top are called the peristome teeth and the operculum is off.
I try to note, as in all my investigations, all the details even if I don’t know what or if they will have any significance. Here I noticed at the base of the seta it had a sheath.
This is a cross section of the leaf. It is pretty cool because of all the lamellae (the individual green fingers sticking up. Not all mosses have this the characteristic. The black line to the left of the section is water.
Close up the lamellae. Each lamella was 6-10 cells high.
Protonema is the first growth stage of a bryophyte. This is the green stuff that you can see on ground in the macro photos above.
I think this is the moss developing. It was down in the protonema.
I did not identify this moss because I do not have the keys necessary. BUT Jeanne does! And so she ID it. And it is Pogonatum brachyphyllum! Thank you Jeanne!
Flickers are so beautiful. Hope yours is ok. Nice pics too
Glad it was able to get up and fly away! The moss lamellae are amazing.
Claire, The lamellae was interesting. Also interesting was that it was not at the base of the leaf. When I did my first section I didn't see any at the base. I was thinking, "what does Jeanne mean there was lamellae" Ha ha!
Very cool photos! And I'm very glad the flicker seems to have recovered. I was involved in a similar incident years ago with a yellow-billed cuckoo.
I bet the flicker was fine. It seemed to be just dazed. Since it did not stay long and its eyes were never shut. We seem to get a bird that hits the window every now and again. Most are like the flicker and fly away without any help from me.
That flicker is so close and gorgeous. Nice photos!