The Yellow-shafted Flicker 
where marked with sharply defined and handsome round, or cordate, spots of black. 
Bill and feet dark plumbeous. Adult female: Similar, but without black moustache. 
Sexes about equal in size. Length 279.4-323.9 (11.00-12.75); wing 162.5 ( 6 - 4 °); tail 
106.2 (4.18); bill 36 (1.42); tarsus 28.9 (1.14). 
Recognition Marks. —Robin size; pectoral black crescent, white rump, black- 
spotted breast, bill slightly curved, etc. (in common with C. cafer)\ yellow flickerings in 
flight, scarlet nuchal band, black malar stripe (of male), in contrast with C. cafer. 
Nesting. —Does not breed in California. Nest: An excavation in tree or stump, 
usually made by the bird, at moderate heights; unlined, save by chips. Eggs: 4-10, 
usually 7 or 8; glossy white. Av. size 27.7 x 21.6 (1.09 x .85). 
Range of Colaptes auratus. —Northern and eastern North America from the limit 
of trees to the Gulf Coast. 
Range of C. a. borealis. —Breeds in northern North America from Labrador 
along the limit of trees to the Kowak River and Bering Sea, south to northern Ontario, 
Minnesota, and eastern Wyoming. Winter range not yet clearly distinguished, but 
stragglers, at least, occur down the Pacific Coast to southern California. 
Occurrence in California. —Not common winter visitor chiefly west of the 
Sierras. (Santa Barbara, Nov. 4, 1911; Jan. 23, 1915; Nov. 29, 1919, 4 birds). 
Authorities.—Ball ( Colaptes auratus ), Auk, vol. ii., 1885, p. 383 (San Ber¬ 
nardino); Swarth, Condor, vol. iii., 1901, p. 66 (Los Angeles, one spec.); Condor, vol. 
xii., 1910, p. 107 (hybrid); Grinnell, Pac. Coast Avifauna, no. 11, 1915, p. 82 (status 
in Calif.). 
WE ARE always chiding our undiscriminating friends for calling 
the Flickers of California “Yellow Hammers,” whereas the birds are red. 
But once in a coon’s age the guess is correct. Flickers with yellow shafts 
do occur, now and then, but chiefly in winter, in very diverse sections of 
the State. And when they are found, there are four possibilities to choose 
from: Either (1) the bird is a simon-pure C. a. borealis from Alaska; 
or else (2) it is a hybrid from northwestern British Columbia where 
C. a. borealis and C. cafer saturatior interbreed; or (3) it is a hybrid from 
central Alberta where C. a. luteus and C. c. collaris meet; or else (4) it 
illustrates a rare dicroic phase of Colaptes cafer itself. Evidence upon the 
last-named point has not yet been duly arrayed. It would manifestly 
require to be supported by breeding birds, but that dichroism is a very 
probable explanation of some of the occurrences recorded in the name of 
C. auratus, is clearly suggested by the dichromatic situation known to 
exist in the case of the Gilded Flicker, C. chrysoides mearnsi. Without 
much doubt, also, some of the yellowed examples from California are true 
hybrids. The re-amalgamation, in Alberta and Saskatchewan, of two 
races of Colaptes, long separated, is one of the romances of American 
ornithology. But most interesting of all, for our present consideration, 
is the fact that a form now dominant in Alaska, and which reached that 
station by the familiar northwest flight-line, occasionally sends stragglers 
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