The Red-shafted Flickers 
of cool, moist situations, if these are also comparatively open. Nests are 
usually excavated in the month of April, or from that to June, according 
to elevation; and any tree or stump may serve as host. In a northern 
locality I saw a Flicker’s 
nest in a stump only two 
feet high, and its eggs 
rested virtually upon the 
ground. Others occur in 
live willows, cotton¬ 
woods, oaks (whether 
black or white), and ap¬ 
ple trees. Pine and fir 
stubs have their uses 
also; and I have seen 
nests, a few, sixty feet 
up in dead pine trees. 
The birds nest also in the 
walls of buildings, in 
which case they lug in 
chips to lay on beam or 
sill, and so prevent the 
eggs from rolling. !n 
southern California the 
Flicker occasionally 
nests in banks, after the 
fashion of Kingfishers; 
but in such instances the 
nests are easily recog¬ 
nized by their larger 
size, and by the exag¬ 
gerated key-hole shape 
of the entrance. 
From six to ten 
highly polished, semi¬ 
transparent, white eggs 
are laid upon the rotten 
wood or chips which 
usually line a nest; and 
incubation begins, cus¬ 
tomarily, when the last 
egg is laid. Bendire 
notes an instance, in the the hole story 
Taken in Sespe 
Photo by Dickey 
1045 
