Educate Yourself All About Woodpeckers and Flickers
Northern Flicker
The Northern Flicker has a brownish head with a gray or brown crown, black or red mustache, black patch on chest; spotted below, conspicuous white rump, and golden yellow or red under the wings and tail. Its length is 12-14in (30-35cm) Its wingspan is 20in (30-35cm) Its voice is a call of loud “klee-yer”, and a squeaky “flick-a, flick-a”.
Their eggs are glossy white, with one clutch of 5-8 or (3-12) eggs. Both male and female incubates for around 12-14 days, and fledging time is 25-28 days. Both male and female feed their young. The female is recognized by its lack of whisker marks.
The Northern Flicker belongs to two subspecies; the Yellow-shafted, witch covers the eastern part of North America, and the Red-shafted overlaps with it in the Plains and ranges westward. The gilded flicker- another golden-winged bird- lives in the desert southwest. These birds generally do not move far in migration, and some of them are all year around residents.
Flickers are big brown woodpeckers, and when the bird takes wing, you can see a white patch above its tail flash as it flies; witch gives the flicker its name. Apparently that flash of white startles predators like the Cooper’s Hawks, and also the abrupt landings by the flickers, by folding its wings over the rump, makes them a harder catch. The flickers also help to keep your trees healthy by eating pests like wood-boring beetles, and carpenter ants that can destroy the bark and wood.
Flickers mostly feed on the ground, jumping over lawns and other open fields and forest floors, where they find ants, grasshoppers, crickets, and beetles. They also catch on the wing, other flying insects like wasps, flies, and mosquitoes, witch is a surprising talent for a woodpecker.
They like to feast on fruit and berries as well, witch consist mainly of elderberry, serviceberry, hackberry, pokeberry, Virginia creeper, dogwood, poison ivy and poison sumac. They will most likely not show up at your hanging bird feeders, and table feeders, but will take a taste of suet or peanut butter mixtures if available. Look up our section on RECEPIES for peanut butter mixtures and homemade suet.
The male usually picks the nesting site, and will do most of the excavation, on a dead tree or trunk, sticking out from bushes and other high vegetations. They also reuse old nesting sites from years earlier, their nesting sites are also used by many other birds, especially Buffleheads, and small tree-nesting ducks form the Canadian lakes. You will definitely help out a lot, by putting up nesting boxes and nesting snags for the flickers in your bird feeding garden, since nesting spaces are getting more scares every year. Go to our section on NESTBOXES AND SHELFS to learn more about appropriate sizes.
The nest can be located as low as 2ft (60cm), to as high as 90ft (27m), and will contain fresh wood chips at the bottom of the nest. Both the male and female incubates the eggs, with the male taking the night shift and both will help in feeding the young ones, on a diet of regurgitated insects.
The usually stay within a mile of each others roosting sites, but can stay in an area of about half a square mile wide. They have made studies on flickers by attaching transmitters to the male flicker witch shows that the male will usually sleep in a different roosting location every night; either hanging on to an overhang like eves on a building or a tree, or tree cavity.
It has shown that the flickers abundance has declined over the past 30 years, and mostly due to re-growth of forest in most of the eastern regions witch causes loss of opens ranges and fields. Also the use of insecticides for controlling fire ants and such might have taking the toll in the southern US, where most of the flickers spend their winters. The European Starlings aggressive behavior, in stealing nesting sites, has not been a big help either.
If you like to attract flickers to your lovely bird feeding garden, plant shrubs like elderberry, serviceberry, pokeberry, and dogwood and Virginia Creepers. Put up nesting boxes and snags as well. Always have fresh water and clean birdbaths nearby.
