The Northern Flicker - (Colaptes auratus) Northern Flickers are unusual among North American woodpeckers in that their general coloration is brown rather than black and white. Their backs are brown with black barring, and their chests and bellies are light tan with prominent clear black spots. Their tails are black, and they have white rumps. There is a broad, black band across the upper chest.
These are the red-shafted found in the west; the other flicker is the yellow-shafted found mostly in the east.
The flight feathers of red-shafted flickers have reddish-orange shafts, and their wings and tail are reddish-orange below. Red-shafted Flickers have gray heads, throats, and napes, and their foreheads are brown. Males have red moustaches; the moustaches of females are pale brown.
Northern Flickers can be found throughout most wooded regions of North America, and they are familiar birds in most suburban environments. They need some open area and do not nest in the middle of dense forests, but they breed in most other forest types.
Unlike other woodpeckers, northern flickers are principally ground feeders, though they also forage on tree trunks and limbs. They have a strongly undulating flight pattern, and they can be easily identified in flight by this pattern and their prominent white rumps.
Northern flickers are known to mostly feed principally on ants and some other insects, fruit, seeds, and berries. The flickers pictured here (taken January 20120 were more interested in my suet feeder and in many cases were aggressive toward competing sparrows.
These birds will typically excavate nesting cavities in dead or diseased pine, cottonwood, or willow trees for nesting sites. Males do most of the excavation with some help from females. Both incubate the 5 to 8 eggs for about 11 days, then brood the newly hatched young for about 4 days more. Both sexes feed the young, which leave the nest after 24 to 27 days. The parents continue to feed the young once they fledge, and soon the young begin to follow the adults to foraging sites and gather their own food.
Red-shafted flickers tend to over-winter on their breeding grounds or migrate short distances. Flickers have migrated to Washington from Alaska and the northern Rocky Mountains.
The spread of residential development, roads, and the increasing fragmentation of the forest have actually increased the amount of habitat for northern flickers. However slight declines have been observed recently, which may be due to competition with European Starlings for nest holes. This has been the case in my location. Keeping invasive starlings out of nest boxes is a major job.
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