The Daily Bucket: A Flicker Family Feeds and Fledges

The Northern Flicker (NOFL), (Colaptes auratus)) is the most prevalent woodpecker in my part of the country. Although they are found throughout North America, those in the east are Yellow-shafted  while ours in the west are red-shafted.

This is the first time I have had an opportunity watch a pair of Flickers excavate their nest in what they must have considered a typical tree cavity, prepare their nest, lay the eggs, incubate them, hatch them, protect them, feed them, and finally fledge them. It has been a very interesting and time consuming process for me as their nest cavity was in a power pole in our alley. As is typical for Flickers, the hole was about 20 feet up and it faced my backyard. I could watch them from inside my house and back porch. It was only a few steps to my garden fence that I used as a makeshift tripod, or something to steady the camera. (Similar to PH Scott’s hawk fest last month. )

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My observations and descriptions of this process involved a lot of surmising and some anthropomorphizing  as to what was occurring since I could not see inside the nest which  goes down 16 “ into the cavity.  I could only observe their behavior at their portal as they came and went for food. Eventually I was able to see the chicks poke their heads and mouths up for food as I’ll show.

In mid April, I saw and heard the prospective parents pecking out their new home.  Both parents typically work on the excavation.  A couple of days later I could still hear the pecking but could not see the birds. I was puzzled until I realized that they were now inside the pole excavating a sizeable cavity for the nest. The nest is basically bare, lined with the wood chips rather than weeds or other soft materials.

The cavity widens at bottom to make room for eggs and the incubating adult. The sources I consulted varied on how many eggs were typically laid in a nest. The Audubon site says: 5-8, (sometimes 3-12), while Wikipedia says : 6 to 8. I have no way of telling here as I have only seen two at a time when they poked their bills up into the hole entrance. I would think if it were the upper end, such as 8 to 12, they would be literally stacked up and climbing over one another, especially as they grew. I think however that there were only two who survived, one male and one female.

I kept record of my observations each day since I became aware that they were taking turns sitting on a nest of eggs. However, I cannot be sure of the timing since this incubation took place out of sight, deep in the cavity.   Audubon says they hatch after 11 to 16 days of incubation and leave the nest 25 to 28 days after hatching.

Male chick begging Mom

Once nestlings are about 17 days old, they begin clinging to the cavity wall rather than lying on the floor. This is when they might become visible as they reach up to the hole.  On May 22nd, I saw a bit of fluff in the cavity which I assume was my first view of a chick, having ventured up the inside of the cavity.

Throughout the nesting stage, there is always the possibility of predation on the young by other critters.  When intruders show up Flickers display a series of warning actions. Usually it is a drumming sound which I did hear occasionally. They are also said to make showy displays. I saw a crow hanging around on the wires very close to the nest. Papa came flying in from a food run while the crow was there and bobbed around and vocalized until the crow left. This was the first time I have heard the Flickers vocalize in all the time I observed them. The crow might have also been concerned for its own nestlings as I think it was a parent from a nest in the maple tree in our front yard.  

Papa Flicker in standoff with intruding crow

At this same time the other bushes and trees in the yard were hosting their own nesting exercises. On the south side, there were Robin nests in a laurel hedge  and on the north side there were Spotted Towhees. several house sparrows set up their housekeeping in the rain gutters. 

Feeding is What it is all About: 

Parents essentially become feeding syringes for the little ones. These two parents really got a workout. For the most part, the parents took turns going for food. When one came back, the other would take off as shown in the lead photo with the male leaving for more food. Here is the female leaving the nest. For some reason, the female would leave to the south in search of food and the male would go North. 

Female Flicker heading out for more groceries

As I am sure most readers have witnessed, the actual feeding act that can be described as a feeding frenzy that gets more insistent and intense as the nestlings get older, bigger and hungrier. At first they are just all mouth. Then they get a bit more insistent and finally they are climbing out of the nest gulping for food. The following photos illustrate some of this sequence in these Flickers. 

The chicks come up the entrance hole to feed

Here they are looking out expectantly

Getting older and hungrier. Note the bill is becoming more elongated rather than the delta shape of their younger selves

Now we are a bit older getting cute. Still, “where’s the groceries?”

OK guy, here you go. Papa to son.

Now mom to daughter

About this time the nestlings were from my calculations ready to fledge, so I kept a good lookout for such movement. They seemed to stick their head and then most of their bodies out of the hole as if they were about to launch. Then they would go back inside. After repeating this in and out and “almost” behavior, I got tired of watching them and started calling them “chicken Flickers.” They just didn’t seems to want to take off, even though they must have been about mature enough. 

Chicken Flicker marshalling his nerve to fledge. (June 9th)

He and his sister finally did get their nerve up to take a test flight. Two days later they were gone for good. Unfortunately, they flew the coop while I was elsewhere and I missed the fledge event. 

We have been hearing about housing shortages in town and I guess that goes for the critters too. No sooner were the Flickers gone, their snazzy hotel room with a view in a power pole had a new occupant. 

Douglas squirrel wasted no time in checking out the view this new digs.

Although I did not see the newly fledged Flickers as they left, I think I saw them two days later in the neighborhood, flitting about while I was driving home. I chased after them but they escaped and I did not get a photo. There were two of them and they were clearly a bit smaller than adults so they could have been ours. If not, they were still cute. 

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