Nature Notes for April 25, 2014
What’s the bird I’m seeing on my lawn? It has a long
beak, a black stripe across its chest and some red on the head?
Several times in the past couple of weeks I’ve had a
variation of this query. After asking additional questions and showing the
questioner the picture in a field guide, it was determined that the bird was a
Northern Flicker.
There are a few additional features that would have
made identification easier. First would be the size of the bird. It’s a bit
bigger than a Blue Jay, so it is a rather large woodpecker. The back is brown
speckled with black, the face is shades of gray or brown with the red (in the
male only) a distinct spot on the nape of the neck. The male also has a black
mustache stripe. In flight, flickers show a large white patch on the rump.
The wing lining of most flickers seen locally is
bright yellow. This is also often seen clearly in flight. The western form of
the Northern Flickers has red wing linings. For a time, they were considered
separate species, Yellow-shafted and Red-Shafted Flickers. At present, they are
considered two subspecies of the same species.
The French name for this woodpecker is pic
flamboyant (flamboyant woodpecker), which I think is quite appropriate for such
a colourful bird.
Northern Flickers spend much more time on the ground
than most other woodpeckers. This can make it a bit difficult to find in a
field guide, since most of the illustrations picture the woodpeckers clinging
to the side of a tree in an upright position. Flickers are very fond of ants
and probe into the ground to get at both ant adults and larvae. They commonly
feed on lawns and other open areas with short vegetation. I have sometimes seen
the holes poked into bare sandy soil by these birds. It took me a while to
figure out what was making the holes.
While a few Northern Flickers may be present
throughout the winter in Ontario, most migrate further south to winter in the
continental U.S. During the past couple of weeks, they have been quite conspicuous
as they have been returning.
Immediately on their return, the males start to
stake out territories. Good dead snags are sometimes not in abundant supply.
Like all woodpeckers, they nest in holes that they have created in trees that
have dead stubs or soft centres to the trunk.
Flickers
usually excavate a new nest cavity every year. (The old cavities are used by
many other animals – European Starlings, squirrels, raccoons, Eastern ScreechOwls, Northern Saw-whet Owls to name a few.) The nest consists of a hole in a
tree stub, with a tunnel curving downwards. Some wood chips will be left in the
bottom of the cavity to cradle the eggs.
Because flickers do not have a beautiful song, they
stake their territories by drumming an anything that makes a good noise. In
addition to hollow trees, this can include metal chimney liners and the metal
pipe venting a gas furnace. This sometimes causes some alarm in the residents
of the houses used as drumming posts. The birds often start drumming quite
early in the morning, so this can be nuisance.
Although they don’t sing, they do make very loud
calls. Their “wicka-wicka-wicka” can go on for long periods of time. One source
I consulted rendered this call as “waken-waken-waken”, perhaps a suitable
rendering if it is being uttered at dawn around your house!
Once a nest hole has been excavated and incubation
begins, the birds are much quieter. They don’t want to draw the attention of
potential predators to the nest cavity.
Although Northern Flickers are not on any “watch
list”, there was a substantial decline in their numbers in the twenty years
between the two Ontario Breeding Bird Atlases. This is probably due to habitat
loss. Many hedgerows that might have provided suitable nest trees have been
cleared away, leaving fewer trees of suitable size for this bird to use as nest
cavities.
They tend to nest in trees adjacent to open areas.
Readers may be lucky enough to find one nesting near their home and feeding on
the lawn.
