Everything below is reproduced verbatim from three classic accounts of the northern flicker — Forbush’s Birds of Massachusetts (1927), Bendire’s Life Histories of North American Birds (1895) and F. E. L. Beal’s federal Bulletin 37 on the food of woodpeckers (1911) — with nothing of ours added but the headings, the table and this sentence.

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The woodpecker with 125 names

Haunts and Habits. The flicker is the most generally abundant and well known of all American woodpeckers. It is said that it is known in various parts of the country by fully 125 common names. Country people are almost everywhere familiar with the bird.

Beal’s bulletin states the thesis — The flicker (Pl. VI), known also as the golden-winged woodpecker, yellow-shafted woodpecker, high-holder, yellow-hammer, pigeon woodpecker, and hairy-wicket, is one of the most widely distributed and best known species in the United States. This is one of the few woodpeckers whose flesh is considered palatable, and a few years ago large numbers were shot for market every fall when wild black cherries were ripe.

The bird is so fond of this fruit that when feeding in the trees it loses its natural shyness and is easily approached and killed. Fortunately it is now protected by law in most of the States, and it should be in all. It is a bird of the open country rather than of the forest.

It is much more wary than the hairy or downy. It visits the orchard regularly, but does not make serious inroads on the fruit, and it forages much upon the ground—in fact, in spite of its liking for tall trees, the flicker is the most terrestrial of American woodpeckers.

in spite of its liking for tall trees, the flicker is the most terrestrial of American woodpeckers

Spring: Thoreau’s flicker, and an extravagant courtship

When the glad vociferous flickers arrive after a long and severe winter, we feel that surely spring is here. Thoreau recognized the rejuvenating quality in the spring note of the bird. On April 3, 1842, he wrote: “I have just heard a flicker among the oaks on the hillside ushering in a new dynasty. It is the age and youth of time.” Again he says: ” But how that single sound enriches all the woods and fields… this note really quickens what was dead.

It seems to put life into withered grass and leaves and bare twigs and henceforth the days shall not be as they have been.”

As the season advances and the wooing of the flicker begins, his cheery, seductive love notes express the very spirit of the spring. Now comes the season of reproduction and with it the awakening of life in earth, in air, in a million pools, in verdant meadows and slowly greening woods — the teeming vibrant life of coming summer.

We hear “hither and yon” the flicker’s loud, oft-repeated cry, gradually lowering in pitch and often given for an almost unlimited number of times. Next we see the male in the early morning drumming rapidly on some resonant limb or tin roof — too early for the sluggards, who complain of a reveille at such an unseemly hour.

Those who dance all night care not to rise with the birds at dawn. The drumming is a long, almost continuous roll, and the bird frequently clings to his drumming-post and continues his music for a long time.

The extravagant courtship of the flicker is notorious. We see a pair together, the female reluctant and coy, the male following her close by from tree to tree. Slyly he peeks at her from behind a limb; but soon, becoming bolder, sidles up to her, swinging his head about and displaying the beauties of spread wings and tail as he softly calls ” yucker yucker yucker.” Next a rival male appears.

Now all is action and excitement; each vies with the other in exhibiting all his endearing charms to the demure object of his desires. One takes an elevated position on a branch near her side; the other, not to be outdone, mounts to a similar place on the other side, and now begins a superlative effort on the part of each suitor to impress her with the glowing splendors of his plumage and the seductive pleadings of his tenderest tones.

With wings open and tails widely spread, they turn and twist about, throwing into their notes the most eager supplication. They bow and nod, advance and retreat and use every art known to flickers to win the fair one; but she is obdurate, and so the wooing goes on from day to day. If she goes to the ground, he follows.

If he presses his suit too boldly at first, she repels him with a sharp jab from her bill. When finally she faces him or stands by his side and reciprocates, by nodding even perfunctorily, the situation seems more encouraging. Then he redoubles his efforts to please, sidling around her, posturing, nodding, tossing his head up or swinging it from side to side, and with spread wings and tail, displaying his charms to perfection.

His red nape seems to expand and glow in the sunlight, and his spotted breast swells with renewed ardor. When finally the female accepts a suitor, she acknowledges her submission by returning his courtesies in kind.

A nest anywhere — and two astonishing egg records

When the happy twain are united, they soon find a location for their home, and both sexes work at the excavation, relieving each other from time to time. They are so industrious that they sometimes carry on their work far into the night, and soon after daylight their labor begins again. If they choose a hollow tree or a nesting box for their home, they are likely to hammer away at the inside until they have chips enough in the bottom to make a bed for the eggs.

Therefore, it is well to place some fine chips or coarse sawdust with a little dry earth in the bottom of a flicker box when it is put up. They may use the same domicile for years if not molested. In their fights with other birds for a nesting hole in a hollow tree, sometimes even the Screech Owl is worsted.

There is a case recorded where a flicker, a Bluebird and a Sparrow Hawk occupied holes in the same dead branch. Flickers have nested (as have wrens) in holes in an old stump in a lion’s cage at the Washington National Zoological Park. If robbed of her treasures the female may continue to lay or may first deepen the hole and then lay another set.

Mr. Charles L. Phillips tells of a female that laid 71 eggs in 73 days, when they were taken from the nest as fast as deposited, one always being left for a nest-egg. Both sexes take turns in incubation, and the one on the nest is fed by the other. They are very affectionate, continuing their wooing more or less during the nesting season, and both share in caring for the young.

The young remain in and about the nest about 14 to 16 days, but during the last two of these they may spend much time climbing about outside. In some cases, however, they seem timid and backward about leaving their natal home, and the parents have to use persuasion and even force to get them out.

As the young in the nest increase in size they become noisy, and if a person taps on the tree, a loud buzzing may be heard from within. In September when the fledglings have grown strong and able to care for themselves, the southward migration begins. This continues through October when, after some severe frost in the north, hundreds may be seen migrating by daylight, especially along the coast of Connecticut, where they turn westward and follow the shore.

Forbush’s breeding notes — Nest: A hole made by the birds in a tree, fence post, a hollow tree, building, haymow, haystack, stump, nesting box, or hole in a bank or cliff such as those made by Kingfishers or swallows; very rarely a mere hollow in the ground; when a cavity in a tree is hollowed out by the birds, the entrance usually is from two to three inches in diameter and the hole 10 to 24 inches in depth and from 2½ to 60 feet from the ground.

Eggs: 3 to 20, commonly 5 to 9; .77 to 1.16 by .72 to .87 in.; short or elliptical ovate; white, fine grained and very glossy; illustrated in Capen’s “Oology of New England,” Plate XIV, Fig. 15. Dates: April 29, Rhode Island, to June 14, Maine. Incubation: Period variously given as 11 to 16 days; incubation may commence with first or last egg; by both sexes. Usually one brood yearly, sometimes two.

Bendire, on where flickers will dig — it has been known to chisel through the weather-boarding of dwelling houses, barns, and other outbuildings, and to nest in the hollow space between this and the crossbeams; its nests have also been found in gateposts where both people and stock pass constantly, in church towers, and in burrows of Kingfishers and Bank Swallows in the perpendicular banks of streams.

From five to nine eggs are usually laid to a set, mostly six or seven; but considerably larger ones are sometimes found, possibly the product of two females laying in the same nest; but the fecundity of this Woodpecker is known to be very great. Prof. B. W. Evermann took not less than thirty-seven eggs from a pair of these birds (out of the same nest) between May 4 and June 22, 1885; and a still more remarkable instance is recorded in the “Young Oologist” (Vol. I, June, 1884, p. 26), by Mr. Charles L. Phillips, of Taunton, Massachusetts, who found two eggs of this bird in a cavity of a large willow on May 6, 1883, of which he took one, leaving the other as a nest egg; and he continued to do this day after day until the poor bird had laid seventy-one eggs in seventy-three days.

Mr. Steward Ogilby, of Staten Island, New York, also reports, in “Forest and Stream” of June 25, 1885 (p. 427), finding a brood of not less than nineteen young Flickers in one nest, all alive and apparently in good condition. It seems almost impossible for a single bird to cover and hatch such a number of eggs, but the fact that the young were apparently well fed and in good condition is still more remarkable, and the parents must certainly have had a busy time to provide for such a large family.

An egg is deposited daily until the set is completed, and incubation lasts about fifteen days; this ordinarily does not begin until the set is completed, but now and then young birds and eggs in different stages of advancement are found in the same nest. The young are able to leave their nest in about sixteen days; they crawl about on the limbs of the tree for a couple of days before they venture to fly, and return to the nest at night.

The parents are rather suspicious about the nesting site, and endeavor to keep out of sight as much as possible, even where not molested; they are devoted in the care of their young, and will frequently allow themselves to be captured on the nest.

The average measurement of one hundred and ninety-six eggs of this species in the United States National Museum collection, mostly from the more northern portions of its range, is 27.96 by 21.50 millimetres, or about 1.10 by 0.85 inches. The largest egg of the series measures 30.48 by 22.86 millimetres, or 1.20 by 0.90 inches; the smallest, 24.64 by 20.83 millimetres, or 0.97 by 0.82 inch.

he continued to do this day after day until the poor bird had laid seventy-one eggs in seventy-three days

Where flickers sleep

Mr. Manly Hardy, of Brewer, Maine, writes me: “I once found one asleep on the outside of a tree, late in the evening. I was traveling by moonlight, and knowing the exact location of the nest in a small poplar, decided to visit it. I walked close under the bird, without apparently waking him, and then struck the tree a blow with a club, which I felt sure would stun him, but he flew off all right.

There was no bird inside of the hole, so he slept outside, clinging to the tree, from choice. This proves that they can and do sleep in this way.”

Most of the flickers that pass the winter in New England seek the vicinity of the sea, though in mild winters an occasional individual may appear anywhere in southern New England. Near the sea-shore they find bayberries of which they are very fond, and, other food failing, they get some sustenance from the rows of seaweed along the shore.

Usually they retire to some cavity in a tree at night, but during one winter at Wareham one apparently slept on the wall of my summer cottage under the eaves, clinging to one of the ornamental battens in an upright position as it would cling to a tree trunk. This bird for some unaccountable reason chose the north side of the cottage.

He was there night after night at dusk and also at daylight each morning. Mr. R. F. Carr tells of a flicker that was accustomed to pass winter nights in a chimney of an occupied dwelling in a thickly settled neighborhood which undoubtedly was a more comfortable roosting place than the north side of my cottage.

These cases were very unusual. Commonly in winter flickers drill holes through the walls of vacant buildings in southeastern Massachusetts and sleep inside. Sometimes they become confused while exploring the interior of a furnished cottage, and, unable to find the way out, die there. At different times I have found two dead in my cottage.

They had cut away a part of a window sash and damaged the curtain in their efforts to escape. Mr. H. W. Copeland reports that a flicker found shelter during a severe rain-storm by clinging to the side of a post which supported a bird box. The bird kept to the dry side of the post and the bottom of the box formed a roof over its head.

Ned Dearborn says: “In fierce winter weather flickers frequently cling to the lee side of a good-sized tree for shelter from high winds.”

The ant ledger

The flicker is very fond of ants which form a large part of its daily food whenever they can be found; hence this bird is often seen on the ground investigating ant-hills, and in autumn while the family keeps together, from five to ten birds may be started from the ground in the same field.

While on the ground they run a few steps and stop, run a few more and stop, much in the manner of the Robin, but when they find an ant-hill they spend considerable time there. While thus engaged they often allow a near approach. As they fly off when startled, they are likely to utter a curious purring sound, and they display their white rumps, thus proclaiming their identity.

Complaints have been made that the flicker eats corn and cultivated fruit to an injurious extent, but the charges are not very specific, and the stomach contents do not indicate extensive depredations of this kind. For the investigation of the food of the eastern flicker, 684 stomachs were available. They were collected in 35 States, the District of Columbia, and Canada, and are very evenly distributed through the year.

The food consists of 60.92 per cent of animal matter to 39.08 of vegetable. In addition the stomachs contain considerable fine sand, which is probably not taken to aid digestion, but is swallowed accidentally with some kinds of food, notably ants. Quite a quantity of vegetable rubbish is taken in the same way.

Animal food.—Predaceous ground beetles (Carabidae) form a small but very constant element of the flicker’s food. Among those eaten are some of the larger and more predatory genera, such as Calosoma, Scarites, and Pterostichus. The total amount eaten in the year is only 1.62 per cent of the food, and in August, the month of greatest consumption, it rises to only 3.79 per cent.

Other beetles are found in the food of every month, but in rather irregular amounts. The aggregate for the year is 3.52 per cent. The favorite food of the flicker, however, is ants. They form the largest item of animal food, not only in the aggregate but in every month. The total for the year is 49.75 per cent of the food.

They were found in 524 of the 684 stomachs, i. e., in 76 per cent of the whole, and there were 98 stomachs that contained no other food.

In one case a stomach and crop were both filled with very small ants (Cremastogaster sp.). The whole mass was divided with care into 16 parts as nearly equal as possible, and in one part 315 ants were counted, giving 5,040 in one meal of one flicker. In addition there were at least 100 pupae.

Two other stomachs and crops examined in the same way each gave a little over 3,000 ants. Probably each of 100 stomachs in the collection contained nearly as much ant food as these, but the number of ants was less because they were of larger species. A large proportion of the ants eaten are of species that live in the earth, and these appear to be the principal food the flicker obtains on the ground. In every case where the stomach held a quantity of these small ants, a lot of fine sand revealed their source.

The worst sin of the ants, however, is that they protect and foster plant lice in every possible way. They defend them from their enemies, cover them with sheds to shield them from inclement weather, and upon the approach of winter they carry some species into the ground and place them on the roots of plants for the winter and at the return of warm weather bring them to the upper air and place them in a position suitable to their needs.

As plant lice constitute one of the worst pests to horticulture, their protectors are a nuisance and should be destroyed. As we have seen, flickers devour enormous numbers of them and aid essentially in holding them in check.

The rest of the menu, and the verdict

Vegetable food.—Corn was found in 17 stomachs of the flicker, wheat in one, and buckwheat in two. One stomach taken in March was entirely filled with corn, evidently waste grain. Most of the remainder was taken in fall and early winter. The total for the year is 1.12 per cent. Small fruits are the favorite vegetable food with this bird.

They are eaten in every month and constitute a good percentage in all but two. In April and May fruit amounts to less than 1 per cent, but increases through the summer to October, when it is about 42 per cent of the food, and then decreases gradually to the minimum in April. Possibly some of the Rubus fruits were cultivated, and the cherries in one stomach certainly were, while the fruit pulp in 21 stomachs may have been, but in any case the amount is insignificant and shows that the flicker eats but little domestic fruit.

On the other hand, 31 species of wild fruits were identified. They were contained in 265 stomachs, and 40 contained no other food. They are not only the favorite vegetable food, but, next to ants, are the favorite food of the year. There is also shown a fondness for the seeds of various species of poisonous Rhus (poison ivy, poison oak, and poison sumac).

These seeds are eaten mostly in the fall and winter months, when small fruits are less abundant. May, June, and July are the only months when none were eaten. November appears to be the month of greatest consumption, when they reach nearly 38 per cent. The aggregate for the year is 9.25 per cent.

Summary.—From the point of view of the food analyst the farmer and horticulturist have very little quarrel with the flicker.

The flicker is one of the few birds that destroy the pernicious European corn-borer (Pyrausta nubilalis) which now threatens the corn crop of this country. The bird should be protected and fostered.

Source

Edward Howe Forbush, Birds of Massachusetts, Vol. II (1927), Northern Flicker. Charles Bendire, Life Histories of North American Birds, Vol. II (1895), Flicker. F. E. L. Beal, Food of the Woodpeckers of the United States, USDA Biological Survey Bulletin 37 (1911), Flicker. Public domain. Biodiversity Heritage Library / Internet Archive.

Passages reproduced verbatim from the scanned originals. Hard line-wraps joined and the scan’s doubled word spacing collapsed; page headers, plate captions and the sources’ reference footnotes omitted; footnote reference marks (superscript digits, asterisks and daggers printed after sentences) removed; OCR pipe characters removed; the printers’ space before punctuation closed up and compound hyphens the scan breaks apart closed. The OCR loses the ae ligature in Latin names (e.g. ‘larve’, ‘Carabide’); ‘ae’ restored throughout. Single-glyph OCR corrections: “during one winter at Warcham” to “during one winter at Wareham”; “Ned Dearborn says : 1 “In fierce” to “Ned Dearborn says: “In fierce”; “when, after some severe frost in the north, hundreds-may be seen” to “when, after some severe frost in the north, hundreds may be seen”; “in the perpendicular,banks of streams” to “in the perpendicular banks of streams”; “writes me: “TI once found” to “writes me: “I once found”; “(ott of the same nest)” to “(out of the same nest)”; “two eges of this bird” to “two eggs of this bird”; “as a nest ege;” to “as a nest egg;”; “busy time to vrovide” to “busy time to provide”; “An ege is deposited daily” to “An egg is deposited daily”; “before they ve mtur e to fly” to “before they venture to fly”; “The parents are rather suspic ious” to “The parents are rather suspicious”; “ninety-six eges of this species” to “ninety-six eggs of this species”; “The ageregate for the year is 3.52 per cent” to “The aggregate for the year is 3.52 per cent”; “The total for the vear is 1.12 percent” to “The total for the year is 1.12 per cent”; “The ageregate for the year is 9.25 per cent” to “The aggregate for the year is 9.25 per cent”; “from 2| to 60 feet from the ground” to “from 2½ to 60 feet from the ground”; “(Pyrausta nublalis)” to “(Pyrausta nubilalis)”; “Summary.—F rom the point” to “Summary.—From the point”; “when they find an anthill they spend” to “when they find an ant-hill they spend”. Cuts, always at sentence boundaries: Forbush’s courtship paragraph is trimmed before its polyandry tail and his ant-economics quotation of Dutcher/Comstock is omitted (Beal’s own ant discussion is given instead); Bendire’s Manly Hardy quotation ends where the scan scrambles its blueberry sentences, and his haystack-nest story (garbled measurements) is omitted; Beal’s chapter is excerpted around its printed monthly table (the bulletin’s tables do not survive OCR and are not reproduced), and his scrambled summary is represented by its first sentence only. A closing quotation mark is supplied where the Hardy quotation is cut.