It just looks (and acts) like a woodpecker

By CHRISTIAN RYAN

Special to The Press

Although it might not look like it, the northern flicker — colaptes auratus — is actually a woodpecker.

Both it and its more famous red-crested cousin, the pileated woodpecker, belong to the picidae family of birds, which nests throughout North and South America, Africa, Asia and Europe. The northern flicker lives in the woodlands and gardens of North America.

Northern flickers are about 11 or 12 inches from beak to tail. They weigh between 3.9 and 5.6 ounces, and they have a wingspan of nearly 17 to more than 20 inches. This makes them medium-sized birds, somewhere between a robin and a crow.

Flickers are more colorful than pileated woodpeckers. At first glance, the plumage of a northern flickers is brownish in color with black spots and other markings, including a black crescent at the base of the front of the neck. In flight or during a mating ritual or a territorial display, the red or bright yellow undersides of the bird’s wing and tail feathers are visible. Males posses a black marking under the eyes and a flashy dash of red on the nape.

How much wood does a woodpecker peck when a woodpecker pecks on wood? If it’s a northern flicker, the answer is: Not much. Most woodpeckers peck at trees with their beaks to extract tasty grubs or store nuts in trees for later. The northern flicker, though, likes to do most of its foraging on the ground. They’ll occasionally perch on tree branches and trunks to snack on nuts, seeds and fruits that fall to the ground, but what they really love is insects.

They chow down on caterpillars, termites, beetles and especially ants. Flickers are the only North American woodpeckers that commonly feed on the ground. Apparently they also have a taste for bats, as they’ve been observed snatching young bats as they leave their roost for the night in Wyoming.

They don’t do it often, but there is one time that flickers engage in activities becoming of a woodpecker: mating season. In trying to woo the females and keep rival males at bay, the male flickers show off the bright colors on the undersides of their wings and tails, move their heads back and forth and, of course, they furiously hammer away at the wood of a dead tree or even a rooftop. This is why they are often called yellowhammers. The northern flicker has other nicknames as well based on the other sounds it makes, including clape, gaffer woodpecker, heigh-ho, and gawker bird.

While migratory in the Canadian and Alaskan part of their range, northern flickers of the Couer d’Alene area reside year-round. Don’t be surprised if you spot a few of them in the coming autumn and winter months.

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Email Christian Ryan at animaladventures1314@gmail.com.