Sometime in March, the most God-awful racket started on our bedroom fireplace flue cap up on the roof. I finally found out it was a Northern Flicker calling a mate. Apparently they like to rat-a-tat on metal because it is far louder that drumming on a tree or a snag. After about five or six weeks, Mr. Flicker took off, and peace was restored. Not sure if he found a mate, though. I only was able to spot him once beating on the flue cap, but he was so far away I couldn’t get a pic.
I hate flickers.
There was one on the hill years ago that beat on a microwave dish on a radio tower. The parabolic dish focused the noise, and it was incredibly loud in the direction the dish pointed.
On the last reroof of our house we went from tin vents, to ridge vent, which ended the ever delightful racket of the Flickers pounding on the metal vents. It didn’t last forever, but we always got a laugh out of their unusual use of our roof vents. They are some of our biggest birds that hang around the area along with blue jays, scarlet finches, gros beaks, sparrows, gold finches, along with the host of what my wife calls Sh&t birds, grackels, redwing blackbirds, and the yellow beak no tail bird whose name escapes me at the moment.