SOUTHERN FLICKER 259 



COLAPTES AURATUS AURATUS (Linnaeus) 

 SOUTHERN FLICKER 

 Plate 35 



HABITS 



Tlie tj^pe name auratus is now restricted to the flickers of the 

 South Atlantic and Gulf States, from North Carolina to southern 

 Florida and central Texas north to extreme southern Illinois and 

 Indiana, southeastern Missouri, and southeastern Kansas, because the 

 above Linnaean name was based on birds described by Catesby, which 

 belonged to the smaller southern race. 



The habits of the southern flicker are so similar to those of the 

 northern flicker that the following account given for the northern 

 race will serve very well for both. It is a common bird, widely dis- 

 tributed and well known throughout its range. In Florida we found 

 it rather partial to open, burned-over tracts in the flat pine woods, 

 nesting in the charred stiunps, but it was also common in more open 

 country in thinly settled regions, where we often found it nesting in 

 isolated trees or dead stubs of palmettos or pines. 



W. J. Erichsen (1920) says of its haunts in Chatham County, Ga. : 

 "Wherever there are areas of cut-over lands on which remain an 

 abundance of dead trees this species will be found in large numbers. 

 At all seasons it exhibits a preference for open pine barrens, but, 

 particularly during the breeding season, is occasionally met with 

 about the edges of swamps if they contain suitable nesting sites. It 

 is abundant on all of the wooded islands, particularly Ossabaw 

 island, where I observed it in large numbers in May, 1915. Here it 

 is oftenest seen in the woods close to the salt marsh or adjoining the 

 beach, apparently not frequenting in any numbers the more heavily 

 forested interior of the island." 



Nesting. — Capt. H. L. Harllee writes to me that southern flickers 

 raise two broods in a season in South Carolina and are not very 

 particular as to their nesting sites. They nest in holes of their own 

 excavation in dead trees of many species, 3 to 100 feet from the 

 ground, either in thick woods or in a lone dead tree in an open cul- 

 tivated field; they also nest in natural cavities in trees. He found 

 one pair of these birds nesting in a hole made by fire in an old 

 burned-out stump; the cavity was about two feet deep and eight 

 inches in diameter; "the opening was slightly arched over with 

 grass growing around it; a small quantity of pine straw was the 

 only lining." 



Arthur H. Howell (1932) says: "The nests are placed in pines, 

 oaks, cabbage palms, or other trees, at heights varying from a few 

 feet to 60 feet above the ground. At Ponce Park, in May, 1925, 



