Northern Flickers Arrive

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.