Growing up a birder, one tends to become the focus of bird questions. Frequently, people describe birds to you, hoping you can identify them. This has never bothered me and it serves as an entry into getting people to think about birds a little more with a series of questions: Where was it? What was it doing? How large was it compared to a bird you know? How did you know it was a he (as in, why do we assign “he” to animals without typically knowing their sex)? Lots of bird species surface in these queries. However, there’s one that tends to garner more attention than most: The Northern Flicker, Colaptes auratus.

I think what frequently catches the attention of people who see a flicker, is the intense color of their underwings and undertail. A reddish-orange flash greets the person who stumbles across a flicker, or as they are also called in our area, Red-shafted Flickers (a Yellow-shafted form of the same species exists east of the Rockies and they used to be considered different species). Of all the feathers I find, a good percentage are from flickers, their orange shafts acting as beacons, more than their feathers being more commonly dropped than other birds. Also noticed by observers is their white rump, or the body speckled with black dots. For being a bird that displays as predominantly gray and brown from afar, they are beautiful birds. An urban favorite.

That is one of my favorite things about flickers. Where other species of woodpeckers that frequent the Hill are more reliant on significant stands of forest, flickers frequent almost everywhere that doesn’t present entirely as cement. As long as they can find food and a roost, they can persist. Leave a snag, or put up a nest box for them, and you might see them a lot more if they choose to nest.

What people are often surprised to discover, is that Northern Flickers are actually woodpeckers. Despite being bound to trees for nesting, they forage on the ground. That American Robin flock spread out across the grassy lawn at Cal Anderson? Peer a little closer and you might just find a flicker mixed in. They’re not attracted not to worms, but instead by their appetite for ants, which make up most of their diet.

They may not be what people imagine when they think of a woodpecker but they have all the anatomical arrangements of a woodpecker. The first hint is their typical stance against a tree trunk when they do jump to one. Specially adapted, stiff tail feathers, act as a prop they can rest against as they investigate a nest cavity or search for arboreal ants. They have a sticky, barb tipped tongue which allows them to probe crevices for food. This is so long that it actually curves around the back of the skull when not in use. Though you’re unlikely to get a look at their feet, you’d notice that their toes are arranged in an “X,” rather than the typical three toes forward, one toe back of many small birds we’re familiar with on the Hill. This zygodactyl arrangement allows for greater grip, especially when hammering out a nest cavity.

Northern Flickers are substantially more migratory than many other species of woodpeckers in our area. They are both latitudinal, traveling south from Northern Canada and Alaska, and altitudinal migrants, dropping from seasonally productive elevations in the Cascades. However, while we may get an influx of them in the winter, flickers are also year-round residents where we live.

This also means that they can attract the ire of resident humans. Another woodpecker trait is their habit of drumming on resonant object during the breeding season, a way of laying claim to habitat. In a forest, that might be a hollow branch or snag. Around our homes that might be a nicely loose bit of flashing or a satellite dish, which is extremely unwelcome when they begin this routine early in the morning. They also aren’t shy about excavating holes in unwanted locations in our buildings. As always, I defer to Russel Link on how to play nicely with them.

Woodpeckers in general are incredible birds that even act as ecosystem engineers by encouraging decay while providing homes for other cavity inhabiting animals. They can be seen as signs of a healthy forest and they are beautiful charismatic species to boot. Flickers are particularly great because they add a bit of color to dreary winters, they are incredibly common, and are often overlooked by the general populace. This makes them a great surprise to someone who manages a close look as they dart up from a dewy lawn, licking ants from their lips and flashing their red-shafted feathers.

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