The Return and Nesting of Northern Flickers

Not long after the phoebe arrives to herald second spring, the flicker returns to us. This woodpecker is as showy and noisy as the little gray flycatcher is muted and unassuming. The phoebe sits on a branch and simply twitches its tail occasionally to show it is not part of the tree bark, and its simple two note sneezy song could easily be overlooked.

You don't have to have sharp ears to hear the flicker. Its loud, long wik-wik-wik call rolls across the field and is echoed back by a distant neighboring bird, ready to challenge with song and soul. The flicker has the blood of warriors in its veins and a gaudy shield to flash in the sunlight, answering any challenge.

Unlike our other four woodpeckers, the flicker developed a taste for the ground as well as the trees. It followed a food trail there, pursuing ants in their earthen burrow as well as beneath the bark. So you can find this woodpecker crouched in the grass, bigger than a robin and just as tall when it raises its head to attention.

If you approach a ground feeding flicker, it will spring quickly up and show its woodpecker heritage, a swift and straight flight, only undulating in time to their powerful wing beat. In retreat, it will reveal the bold white patch at the base of its back, contrasting to its dark brown body and wings.

It is as adept at clinging to the side of a trunk as any other woodpecker, but usually it will take the high way, landing on the topmost thick branch of a large tree. A flicker loves to scout the country from a lonely dead tree that still stands tall along a hedgerow. It often uses such snags as its nesting home, excavating a hole in the dying wood as well as feasting on the larva of borers that abound in such places.

Unfortunately, modern man has taken a dislike to such beautiful but leafless sentinel trees, removing them as quickly as he can. We neatly trim and tame any part of the wild that seems 'messy' and call it being civilized.

The flicker's warrior blood is truly civilized. The other day I watched as two of them flew across a pond and landed in a large snag tree above me. It was ideal habitat for this bird, plenty of trees along a small brook, but also extensive open farmland with mowed roadways and borders.

The birds were two males and they poised on the trunk only a few inches away from each other, remaining absolutely stock still, seemingly part of the inanimate wood. Suddenly they swayed their heads from side to side in ritualized dance, turning just enough to show off the black moustache on either side of their cheeks.

These were fighting flickers, trying to intimidate with a display of gender power. This moustache is the only plumage difference between the male and female flicker. The female boasts the same black bib and red nape mark, the same richly spotted tawny breast and belly, and the same gray crown and brown barred back, but it lacks the black cheek patch.

This stiff, abrupt swaying movement was repeated a dozen times over the twenty minutes I was there, but neither adversary made any other motion. Eventually one would back down and withdraw, a truly civilized way of settling territorial differences.

There are some bird species, like the European starling, that will kill even the flicker in this struggle for a nest hole. One blow on the back of the head from the aggressive starling will kill a flicker, despite its larger size. The starling is a species brought over and introduced to America by humans, and like us it will remove any native species that may stand in its grasping way.

But though the flicker has a beautiful blended yellow underwing color it shows in flight, it is not a coward, and still stands tall like the noble dead trees it favors. Every April it sends its call of joy across the meadow to fall even on our deaf ears.