The Northern Flicker that made a surprise visit last week—I don't usually see these striking members of the Woodpecker family until the spring—is back. Well, I can't be sure it's the same individual, but it's definitely a male of the same species. This time, however, the bird is behaving in a fashion more typical of its kind. The Flicker is definitely a Picid, but it generally doesn't indulge in wood boring. Instead, the handsome creature uses its unusually long bill to "hammer" the ground in search of its go-to food: ants that nest in the ground. This dietary preference makes it similar to the Pileated, which is forever making wood chips in search of the Carpenter Ant nests in the hearts of hardwood trees. The Flicker, by contrast, goes subterranean. I wonder whether it "sees" something tantalizing under the leaf litter.