Flicker (bird)

“ One day when I was watching the stump, a male flicker came with food, and alighted at the lower door, upon which a young bird put his bill out and was fed in the murderous-looking fashion of the flickers. Papa thrust his long beak down baby's throat, and gave several vicious-looking pokes, as if to hammer something down. While I was musing over this strange way of feeding, the bird left, and a female flicker appeared. She glanced into the open door, and then to my surprise slipped half around the trunk and a foot higher, and stopped before the other hole, which I had not noticed till then. ”

“ Being a heavy-bodied bird, the flicker is only too often regarded as a game bird, though his flesh is, to say the least, tough, and here is where his intelligence becomes most apparent, for it certainly looks as though these birds learned to know at sight those persons who are in the way of shooting them, for they are almost invariably regarded by these gunners as about the most difficult birds to approach in existence, though others do not Yellow-bellied Woodpecker. ”

“ Unlike other birds of its family, the flicker passes much of its time on the ground, where it hops awkwardly about, feeding upon insects, especially upon ants. As you come near it, while it is thus engaged, it rises with a peculiar purring sound, and as it flies from you it shows a broad white patch on its rump—the lower [65] back, above the root of the tail. Every one who has ever walked much over grassy fields must have seen the bird and been struck by this conspicuous light mark. ”

“ Because of these yellow feathers the flicker is also called golden-winged woodpecker. Nearly all birds have a scolding word. When the flicker wants to scold he says, “Queer,” as plainly as a person can say it.
Of course, we never went near enough to any bird’s nest to frighten the brooding birds, nor did we stay long enough to keep the parents from feeding their young. We always found a convenient place fifty feet or more away, and through our field glasses watched the birds without annoying them. ”

“ Thirty years ago the Flicker, High-hole or Yellow-hammer, was prey of any boy with a gun and was correspondingly wild and little known; now, thanks to the Audubon Society, he is almost as domestic as the Robin. In search of ants and their eggs, he hunts our lawns and even accepts the hospitality of our nest-logs. A great acquisition to our dooryard life is this bird of beautiful colors, quaint habits, and strange notes. ”

“ It especially loves an old apple tree as a site for a nest, and most of our large, old orchards of New York State may boast of a pair of these handsome birds during the nesting season of May and June. However, the flicker is not above renting any house he finds vacant which was made by other birds last year. The flicker earned his name of "yarup" or "wake-up" from his spring song, which is a rollicking jolly "wick-a-wick-a-wick." As a business bird the flicker shines in the rather extraordinary line of eating ants. ”

“ THE LARGEST STUB CONTAINED SIX EGGS ON THE POINT OF HATCHING JULY 7, 1908, WHEN THIS PICTURE WAS TAKEN.
In the early days of April courtship is in progress, and the love-making of the Flicker is both the most curious and the most conspicuous of anything in that order. An infatuated Flicker is a very soft and foolish-looking bird, but it must be admitted that he thoroly understands the feminine heart and succeeds in love beyond the luck of most. A bevy of suitors will lay siege to the affections of a fair lady, say in the top of a sycamore tree. ”

“ In contests with the flicker the starling frequently makes up in numbers what disadvantage it may have in size. Typical of such combats was the one observed on May 9, at Hartford, Conn., where a group of starlings and a flicker were in controversy over a newly excavated nest. ”

“ Such conveniences for bird homes are rare in this country, and that one was well occupied, and offered a problem I was never able to solve. Beside the deserted woodpecker home to which the wrens had succeeded, there were two freshly made woodpecker doors, and both led to homes of the red-shafted woodpecker or western flicker, [Pg 190] who differs from our familiar flicker only in having red instead of yellow shafts to his wing and tail feathers, and wearing the red badge of his family on his "mustaches" instead of on his collar, as does our bird. ”

“ Flicker was a very polite bird, but he was so used to his wife's little peccadilloes that, though sometimes he listened patiently to her tale of woe, at other times he just tossed his head, absolutely without fear of what man might do to him. ”

“ The Flicker's beak is more slender and curving than those of his brethren, and he has an extremely long, barbed tongue, which, he uses to probe ant-hills. The sticky substance in the bird's mouth covers the little barbs on its tongue, and thus he is able to catch a great many ants at a time. He is one of our best ant-eaters. ”

“ It breeds throughout the United States and in forested parts of Canada; winters in most of the southern United States.
The flicker inhabits open country and delights in parklike regions where trees are numerous but well-spaced. It is possible to insure the presence of this useful bird about the home and to increase its numbers. It nests in any large cavity in a tree and readily appropriates an artificial nesting box. The most terrestrial of our woodpeckers, it procures much of its food from the ground. The largest item of animal food is ants, of which it eats more than any other common bird. ”

“ Field marks.—While hopping about on the lawn, the flicker may be recognized as a brown bird somewhat larger than a robin and with a rather long bill; if facing the observer, the black crescent on the spotted breast is rather conspicuous, but the red crescent on the nape does not show up much except at short range, nor does the black malar patch of the male. The most conspicuous field mark is the white rump, which shows plainly as the bird rises from the ground and flies away ”

“ We cannot repress a smile as we watch this golden-winged woodpecker striving to make a favorable impression upon Miss Flicker. He and a group of rivals take amusing, awkward attitudes, make a variety of noisy but pleasant calls, and without any ill-tempered quarreling, select their mates and “live happily ever after.” ”

“ The sapsucker’s is the shortest of any, and reaches barely beyond the hinge of the jaws. In the Lewis’s woodpecker and others of his genus the branches of the hyoid extend part-way up the back of the skull but in the kinds that live principally upon borers they are very long and resemble the flicker’s in arrangement. The only other North American birds that have a tongue built upon this plan are the hummingbirds, in which also it is extensile. The flicker, in proportion to his size, has the longest tongue of any bird known. ”

“ I could not be enough astonished with the curious little creature.
'Still, every kind of animal takes to me naturally. I accounted for the previous wildness of the Flicker on the ground of mistaken management in the gentleman who owned it, and as a matter of professional pride, determined to make something of the bird, were it only to show, like your Sam Patch, Tryon, that some things can be done as well as others. When I went home in the evening I took the Flicker with me, and made it a nest in an old cigar-box on my mantel-piece. ”

“ In habit and appearance the bird combines Crow, Jay, Woodpecker, Flicker, and Flycatcher. It is perhaps as flycatcher that we know him best, as we see him sail out from the summit of a cottonwood or towering pine-tree and make connection with some object to us invisible. If the insects are flying freely, the bird may conclude to remain aloft for a few minutes, fluttering about in great watchful circles, ready for momentary dashes and adroit seizures. ”

“ Exposing a nest to the camera is very apt to result in disaster unless it is done by one who has the highest interests of birds at heart.
The flickers had their home in a stump of a tree. The entrance was so low I had to stoop in order to look in; but the nest was down deep, out of sight. Whenever Father or Mother Flicker came with food they called softly, “Ye quit! ye quit!” Then the babies could be heard making a hissing sound. Sometimes when the parents were gone longer than usual, a baby flicker could be seen taking a peep at the outside world. ”

“ Though a woodpecker, the flicker departs from family habits and traditions by seeking his livelihood on the ground in preference to tree-trunks. He is a foe to the industrious ant that we were taught to admire along with the “busy bee.” ”

“ The flicker or yellow hammer is another woodpecker that is with us in winter as well as summer. He varies somewhat from the rest of his family in habits, in that, he feeds considerably on the ground, consuming a large number of ants. He is quiet during the winter, but his loud and cheerful notes are one of the first bird songs of spring.
A bird which resembles the woodpecker in his method of feeding, is the brown creeper, a pretty little brown bird, with a long curved bill and long sharp claws, who spends most of his time in climbing trees. ”

“ Their nests are made of twigs, lined with shreds of grape vine bark or catkins; the nests are generally very shabbily made and so flat on the top that the eggs frequently roll off. They are located near the ground in bushes or low trees. The three or four eggs are deposited at intervals of several days, and frequently young birds and eggs are found in the nest at the same time. Like the Flicker, this bird will frequently continue laying if one egg is removed at a time, and as many as twelve have been taken from the same nest, by this means. The eggs are light greenish blue. ”

“ Economically considered, the starling is the superior of either the flicker, the robin, or the English sparrow, three of the species with which it comes in contact in its breeding operations. The eggs and young of bluebirds and wrens may be protected by the use of nest boxes with circular openings 1 1/2 inches or less in diameter. ”

“ But ants destroy timber, infest houses, and cause the spread of aphids that are enemies of garden plants; therefore the ant’s destroyer, the flicker, is a neighborhood benefactor and deserves our heartfelt protection. Professor Beal reports finding 3,000 ants in the stomach of each of two flickers and fully 5,000 in that of another. [72] These insects form almost half of this bird’s food. His long, sticky tongue is especially adapted to their capture. He likes grasshoppers, crickets, beetles, and caterpillars, and while he enjoys fruit, he takes little that is of any value to man. ”

“ Habits rather phlegmatic. The flicker has better developed vocal powers than other birds of this class, whose rolling tattoo, beaten with their bills against the tree-trunks, must answer for their love-song. Nest in hollowed-out trees.
Red-headed Woodpecker. ”

“ Now if they had been the sparrows, or the robins, or the red-winged blackbirds, they would have gone on chattering and contradicting until they came to using claws and bills, and many feathers would have been shed; but they were the quiet, well-bred Flickers, and so they stopped just here, and once more critically regarded the object in question.
"Whoever heard of a stump, old and gray and moss-covered, appearing in one night?" said Mr. Flicker, after a pause. "I have seen more of the world than you have, my dear, and I do assure you it would take centuries to make a stump like that." ”

“ Most northern flickers migrate. They remain during the winter in some localities, as Cape Cod, where food is sufficiently abundant. Mr. Forbush tells of flickers that have bored holes in summer cottages on the Cape, and spent the winters in rooms which they damaged by their habit of “pecking.” He states that bird-boxes containing large entrances placed on the outside of the houses or on the trees near by, would have prevented those flickers from forming the “criminal habit of breaking and entering.” ”

“ Although placed among the Oscines, where, as an excellent singer, it clearly has a good right to be classed, it is yet also a true Flycatcher in habits and manners. It is a lively, active bird, ever on the wing, and continually in pursuit of insects. In this pursuit it never awaits the approach of its prey, but, espying them at a distance, darts with great velocity in pursuit, and the continued clicks of its bill attest the rapidity and frequency with which it will overtake and catch insect after insect. ”

“ The great family of Flycatchers are distinguished by their depressed beak and rictal bristles, and by their general habit of capturing flying insects on the wing, and returning to a resting place to swallow them. The species, before us, however, a bird of remarkable elegance, both of form and colour,—combines with this habit, those of the Warblers; Wilson’s assertion to the contrary notwithstanding. It is particularly restless, hopping from one twig to another through a wood, so rapidly, that it is difficult to keep it in sight, though conspicuous from its brilliant contrast of colours ”

“ This large woodpecker is not black and white, like most of the others, but wears a dress of greenish brown with wing-quills that look just as though they were gilded, and a small bonnet of red on the back of its head where there is no crest. In fact, the flicker is a queer sort of woodpecker generally, for it spends quite as much time in fields and gardens as in the woods, and much of this on the ground in search of insects—mostly ants. ”