Turn light problem

I have '94 Honda Accord 4D. Recently, turn lights started behaving weird. I hear the tick..tick..tick..noise for a while without indicator and turn light flashing. After 4-5 secs, the lights start flashing also and everything is normal. This behavior is more apparent when I use the turn signal for the first time in the morning. As I use it more and more during the day, this behavior is less apparent i.e. lights start flashing sooner. Also, when I use turn light for the first time in the evening after parking under sun whole day, lights start flashing immediately.

I checked all lights for burned out ones. Everyone looks fine. So, I figured it's the flasher that's malfunctioning.

Couple of questions

1) Is my diagnosis correct ? If not, what else should I look for ?
2) How do I pull the flasher out ? I located it under dashboard, but wasn't able to simply plug it out. Is there anything holding it ?

thanks for your help