The Flicker [Colaptes anrdtns auratus) 

 By I. N. Mitchell 



Length : 12^2 inches. 



Range: Northern and H'astcrn Xorlh America, west to Uocky Mouiilains 

 and Alaska. 



Food : \\ ornis, grubs, ants, etc. 



Sexes similar, the female lacks the l)kick streaks on the sides of the throat; 

 nest a deep hole excavated in a dead tree or slul). with no lining save a cushion 

 of fine chips in the bottom : eggs five to nine, usually six ; note a loud anrl clear 

 wick, wick, wick, or wicker, wicker, wicker, or yucker, yucker, etc. 



A bird with so many notes and other accomplishments as the flicker is 

 certain to have many human admirers and also many names. 



W'hen wakened in the early morning by his loud drumming on the ridge- 

 board, chininev cap or cornice and then hearing his wicker, wicker, how easy 

 it is to imagine that he is calling to you to wake-up, wake-up, or that he is 

 saying fiicker, or wicker, or again yucker or rucker. All of these words have 

 come to be his names in some part of the countrx. Ilien, too. there are his 

 bright colors, the golden yellow lining of wings and tail and the yellow quills 

 of wing and tail feathers. No wonder that he is called the golden-winged wood- 

 l)ecker, golden-shafted woodi^ecker, \ellow-shafted woodpecker, yellow-hammer. 

 This last name refers also to his habit of drumming on some dry, resonant limb. 

 Usually the flicker digs his nest hole fifteen feet or less from the ground, Imt 

 occasionally he *goes as high as fifty or sixty feet. How natural therefore to 

 call him the high-hole or high-holer or high-holder. 



Being a woodpecker, we naturally ex})ect to find him working at his trade 

 on the trees, but, how common it is to see this one on the ground instead, more 

 like a pigeon. His size, too, is nearly that of the pigeon and for these reasons 

 he is known to many as the pigeon woodpecker. Rut we can not '^tudy all of 

 his names, for he has nearly forty of them. 



Just above, we noted the flicker's habit of feeding upon the ground like a 

 pigeon. 



If you watch him, you may notice that his l)ill is covered with bits of soil. 

 Evidently he has been digging for something to eat. Examinations of the food 

 found in the stomachs of flickers show what he is after. Earthworms and grubs 

 are much to his liking and he has learned how to find them, but, as already 

 explained in the story of the sapsucker, the flicker is the greatest ant eater 

 among our birds. That is the chief reason why he is on the ground so much. 

 He stirs up the ant hill with his h\\\ .and picks up the ants with the sticky, brushy 

 tip' of his tongue. 



Professor Real found over v^.OOO ants in the stomach of each of two flickers. 

 Ants form forty-three per cent of the flicker's food. That is almost half of it. 



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