photo by Lenny Lensworth Frieling

On a crisp fall afternoon in Boulder, Colorado, award-winning photographer Lenny Lensworth Frieling captured one of his most timeless shots: a male Northern Flicker perched in perfect harmony with the season’s golden palette. This image, selected as our Outdoor Picture of the Day, is more than just a portrait of a bird. It’s a snapshot of Colorado’s wild character, the rhythm of migration, and the artistry of nature meeting the artistry of the lens.

The Northern Flicker: Boulder’s Wild Drummer

Among Colorado’s most recognizable woodpeckers, the Northern Flicker stands out with its striking plumage—brown with black barring, a crescent-shaped black chest patch, and for the males, the iconic black mustache mark that distinguishes them from females. Unlike most woodpeckers, flickers spend much of their time on the ground, probing for ants and beetles, their favorite meals. In Boulder, their rattling calls and rapid wingbeats are common sounds along South Boulder Creek, Chautauqua Park, and the wooded edges of the Flatirons.

Colorado provides an ideal habitat for flickers, with its mix of cottonwood groves, ponderosa pines, and open meadows. In fall, as aspen leaves blaze gold and cottonwoods flame yellow, flickers seem to echo the landscape itself—fiery underwings flashing as they fly.

Lensworth’s Classic Vision

Frieling, known for his ability to elevate the everyday into something extraordinary, has a long history of turning Colorado’s avian residents into works of art. This particular flicker shot belongs to what many call his “classic portfolio”—images that carry both documentary precision and emotional resonance. It’s not just the bird that commands attention, but the way the photograph frames Boulder’s autumnal mood: the soft glow of late light, the shimmer of foliage, and the bird’s stillness that seems to pause time.

For Frieling, photography is a dialogue between patience and serendipity. A flicker rarely stays still for long, often darting from tree to ground in quick succession. To catch one in crisp focus, on a day when Boulder’s fall light was at its richest, is the kind of alignment that makes an image unforgettable.

Boulder’s Outdoor Identity

Featuring the flicker as today’s Outdoor Picture of the Day underscores Boulder’s reputation as a city deeply connected to its environment. From birders scanning the wetlands at Walden Ponds to hikers hearing the flicker’s drumming echo through Eldorado Canyon, this bird is part of the soundtrack of daily life. To see it celebrated in Lensworth’s frame is to see Boulder itself—wild yet welcoming, fleeting yet timeless.

As autumn deepens, let this photograph remind us that beauty is everywhere: in the turn of a leaf, in the call of a bird, and in the lens of a photographer whose eye has helped Boulderites see their world more vividly.

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