Battle for the Nest
Watch a slideshow of the amazing events described below (you need Flash to see the show.)I arrived at the Tulip Tree near the Delacourt Theatre early Friday morning to photograph the Cape May Warbler that had been seen there the previous evening. There was no Cape May so I went over to the Northern Flicker nest nearby to see how they were doing.
It was a rainy morning and the male is perched outside the nest looking in and the female was on a nearby branch. It seemed strange until the male flew-up to join the female and a starling poked its head out of the hole.
The male flicker flew back down and perched at the edge of the nest cavity for several minutes and then a remarkable thing happened: He went into the hole and emerged about 30 seconds later with the starling clutched in his claws. He came out head first with wings flapping and dragged the starling down the tree where he proceeded to peck at him quite hard.
Unfortunately, upon being released, the starling immediately flew back up to the nest cavity, beating the flicker back into the hole.
This sequence repeated itself twice more and each time the starling beat the male flicker back to the nest cavity. The male flicker took a little longer between each sorties into the hole. I think he was waiting for the female to return in the hope she would occupy the nest while he was dealing with the recalcitrant starling.
The female never returned but Victor Emmanuel (who was going to be leading his annual Mother's Day bird walk in CT) joined me and witnessed the flicker’s third try at getting the starling out of the nest cavity. Brian Hart was also there and stuck around until the end. Victor, ever the pragmatic Texan, suggested a high-poweredBB gun might get the starling out of the nest. Unfortunately neither of us had one handy.
