Yellow-shafted Flickers

We had a Yellow-shafted Flicker pair nest in the ash tree next to our back deck.

Above, you can see the nest hole with the female at the opening.

Male Yellow-shafted Flicker

Here is the male Yellow-shafted Flicker. Notice the distinguishing characteristic black malar marking down from the hinge edge of his bill. And, you can see some hint of brilliant yellow coloring on the flight feathers and the tail feathers!
Unfortunately, this is a screen shot from some video that we took. I don't have any clear, actual still shots. This is because the birds have moved their nest elsewhere on May 22nd. You'll see this activity in the video. We are bummed.

Here is the female Yellow-shafted Flicker. She is a bit browner in coloration than the male, and she lacks the black malar marking.

The female is gorgeous! We didn't see much of her initially as she is the one to seemingly spend most of the time on the eggs. By the way, I took these photos from outside the fence using my Nikon P1000 at full zoom (3000mm), so as not to disturb the birds.

Here is a screen grab, from the video, of the female moving one of the eggs. Oddly enough, I think the birds have been creating a second nest hole for awhile as I have heard the male doing his warning call from the far side of our neighbor's yard. 

And, here is a screen grab, from the video, of the female flicker flying away with the egg. 

We decided to try to get images of the inside of the abandoned nest. Drew attached a tiny tripod to the end of a pole pruner, and then duct taped a camera to it. The camera was too big to fit into the nest hole entrance.

Then we remembered that we had an endoscope that we use to try to see into chipmunk dens, etc. Drew uses an old Samsung cell phone (thank you David) that our bro-in-law gave us years ago, that syncs up with the endoscope.

The endoscope was then attached to the pole pruner via the tiny tripod. Drew left a good length of cord so the endoscope could be dropped a ways down into the nest cavity.

The endoscope has lights on the end and can illuminate the nest cavity as photos are taken.

Here is what we saw... a nest of fine wood shavings! No downy softness for woodpeckers. They are made of tougher stuff than your common tweety birds!

Note: I know it may seem callous, but we have maintained normal activity throughout the entire nesting process figuring that if the birds weren't comfortable with us, they wouldn't nest there. Our fenced-in backyard is where our firewood is stacked, our equipment shed is, and where Toby has a safe place, being a blind dog, to roam, to snooze, and to play. And, it is a safe place for us to physically distance ourselves while socializing with friends and their dogs. At no time did we disturb the woodpeckers on purpose. And, Toby had no interest in them whatsoever. Please do not judge us harshly...