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Northern Flicker

Status Common in summer, rare in winter. Breeds. It arrives in early April (average 5 April, earliest 27 March), but large numbers are not seen usually until later in April. Large numbers are seen from mid-September to mid-October, especially on our southwestern islands; thousands were present on Brier Island during September 1984 (R.B. Stern). Flickers present after mid-November probably will attempt to winter. Some have been recorded during Christmas Bird Counts around the province, but few have been seen in late winter, suggesting that most do not survive.

Description Length: 30-33 cm. Adult male: Crown ashy gray with red bar across nape; back grayish brown with broken bars of black; rump white; undersurface of wings and tail brilliant yellow; throat and face cinnamon; short, black "moustache" mark extending down from gape; underparts light fawn, boldly marked with round black spots; black crescent-shaped band across breast. Adult female: The same but she lacks the black facial mark below the cheek.

Breeding Nest: A cavity excavated by the bird in a tree or post, at heights of 1-15 m or more. The nest has no lining other than chips of rotten wood. Nesting locations vary from garden premises to remote woodlands. Usually dead stumps are used, but it is not uncommon to find nests in live trees, especially poplars probably because so many have decayed hearts which simplify excavation. Sometimes a low tree stump is used, the entrance being not more than a metre from the ground. Eggs: 8-10; glossy white. Laying begins about the middle of May. Both sexes share the incubation and feeding of young, the males doing most of the incubating. In 1951 a pair nested in my garden. From 26 May to 13 June, while incubation was in progress, I tapped the tree 100 times; the male appeared at the opening 60 times and the female 40 times. On 24 June 1935 the first young bird left the nest, but the last did not leave until 28 June. A complete set of eight fresh eggs was found on 25 May 1914, and a set of nine about one-half incubated was examined on 5 June 1904; both nests were in the vicinity of Wolfville.

Range Breeds from central Alaska east to southeastern Labrador and Newfoundland, south (east of the Rockies) through much of the United States. Winters from South Dakota, southern Ontario, and Maine (casually in Nova Scotia) south to the Gulf Coast.

Remarks The greatest hazard for the flicker at nesting time is the European Starling. Unless assistance by humans is rendered when competition begins, the builders and rightful owners of the nest will likely be driven out by the smaller but more aggressive and persistent aliens.

Though it feeds largely on the wood-boring ants and beetles it finds in dead trees, the flicker often alights on the ground to prey on smaller, terrestrial ant species. One on 2 August 1946 and another on 29 July 1949 were seen in cherry trees competing with hordes of gluttonous robins and starlings, looking quite ungainly and out of place. On 2 September 1949, one was seen eating rowanberries. Perhaps the strangest behaviour at feeding time was recounted by Rand: a flicker came regularly to his feeding station in February 1923 for suet but occasionally left it to glean a few tasty morsels from the frozen carcass of a cat exposed nearby.

One spring I erected a flicker's nest stump in my garden. I cleaned it thoroughly and placed a quantity of fine sawdust in the bottom to add to its attractiveness. When the birds returned in proper season, I was disappointed to find my efforts were not appreciated, for immediately they began to remove the sawdust a beakful at a time, working in alternate shifts for the better part of two days. This chore having been completed, there was much tapping inside as they picked off chunks of dead wood of approved size from the interior of the rotten stump, allowing the chips to fall to the bottom and form a lining to their liking.

Though I have seen flickers come to my birdbath to drink many times, only once, on the hot day of 15 August 1966, did I witness one taking a thorough bath like other birds.

Our subspecies is the "Yellow-shafted Flicker" (auratus subspecies group). An individual with bright salmon-red underwings and undertail and a red "whisker" stripe, evidently a "Red-shafted Flicker" (one of the cafer group of subspecies), spent several days in June 1971 around the house of Warden and Mrs. Black of Pleasant Bay, Inverness County (J. Timpa).