Courtship in Silhouette

There are a couple dead trees that poke out of the forest just beyond our back yard.  I often wonder why I never see anything in these trees--they seem like prime roosts for birds of prey, 'coons, or a variety of other animals--yet each time I look, which is frequent, there they stand, bare and barren.  (You can see these trees if you scroll down to my recent 'In a Fog' post to see what I mean.) 

The other day, as usual, I stepped out my back door and glanced over at the once-mighty, now-fragile branches and noticed for the first time a quick movement.  Then two!  Against a white sky, I saw the silhouettes of a pair of Flickers doing some kind of courtship ritual where they'd stretch their necks and chatter back and forth with each other, flitting (or 'flicking') from branch to branch, always landing in the same position as you see below. 

It was nice to see life in these otherwise solitary, quiet trees!