There seemed to be something amiss in the aspens of the woods by our cabin in northern Wisconsin. It was mid-August and I had been sitting at my writing table when the ruckus wafted in through the open window. I cocked my head to listen. The calls sounded like those of a Northern Flicker, perhaps young birds. I surmised that a family had fledged in the neighborhood. The noise made me uneasy. Surely it was just the thing to attract a predator—namely, the merlins who had also nested in our woods this summer. And sure enough, throughout the day, I spied a merlin cruising the woods at four different times.
Flickers belong to the woodpecker family, and they fly like woodpeckers, with their undulating gracefulness. They are, in fact, the most common woodpecker found in Minnesota. But their behavior is distinctly unwoodpecker-like. One often flushes woodpeckers off the ground, where they feed on ants and beetles, their first choice of foods. The rise off the ground is the first clue to their identification. The second would be the bright, white rump patch which flashes as they fly. But to really appreciate the Dr. Seuss-like splendor of a flicker’s plumage, one needs to scrutinize a stationary bird–the black-barred back, the polka-dot breast, the male mustachios.
When I was a child studying my Chester Reed pocket guide to birds, there were two recognized sub-species of flickers—Yellow-shafted Flickers in the East and Red-shafted Flickers in the West. Today, 11 subspecies have been identified, but they have all been lumped into one species.
Woodpeckers are known for their long tongues, used to probe dead wood for insects. Flicker tongues are even longer, extending two inches beyond the tip of their beak. This feature allows them to access dinner tucked away in anthills. The birds also have exceptionally large salivary glands that excrete a sticky saliva, enable flickers to hang on to the insects they capture. They are adept at this. One researcher found 5,000 ants in the stomach of one bird.
Like certain other birds (crows, for one), flickers engage in “anting.” They crouch on the ground and allow ants to crawl over their plumage. The ants excrete formic acid as they move about. This compound repels lice and other parasites found in a bird’s feathers.
The young northern flickers I saw was a late brood. Dr. Roberts observed birds in northern Minnesota feeding young in mid-July. Flickers nest in tree cavities of dead or diseased trees, which they may or may not hollow out themselves; in utility poles; and sometimes in artificial nest boxes. They lay 7-9 eggs which both parents alternate incubating, over 11-16 days. They seek out nest sites on the forest edge, or in a savannah-like setting.
My birding app did not have precisely the calls I heard from the young birds, but flickers are identified by a wide variety of calls. I often hear a “wika-wika-wika” and also, a “peah” sounding over and over throughout the woods. To listen to a Northern Flicker, click here: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Northern_Flicker/sounds#:~:text=Northern%20Flickers%20make%20a%20loud,birds%20are%20establishing%20their%20territories.
The tendency to migrate in the fall is the final major feature that distinguishes flickers from other woodpeckers. In September, they become short-distance migrators, joining robins and grackles in large flocks moving south. Their numbers have declined since Roberts observed them. In Birds of Minnesota, he refers to “Flicker days” when in September he witnessed “even larger flocks…passing in successive waves.” At Itasca in September, 1921, “the ground was covered with Flickers and Robins too numerous even to estimate.”
Alas, Northern Flickers share the fate of many North American birds: their numbers are significantly declining, a 2.5% decline per year over many years. But Jerry Niemi (researcher from UM-D) has found that their numbers are not declining in the Chippewa and Superior National Forests, which suggests that the populations in southern and western Minnesota are the ones in decline.
The reasons for the decline are not well understood, but include competition for suitable nest cavities with the non-native Starling, a decline of suitable cavities through habitat loss; and the pervasive use of pesticide in both rural and urban areas.
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