View allAll Photos Tagged Flickers
pattern: Flicker, by Cookie A.
yarn: 'vibrant green' from Kindred Spirits Yarn.
needles: 47" 2.5mm Addi Turbos.
Northern Flickers are large, brown woodpeckers with a gentle expression and handsome black-scalloped plumage. On walks, don’t be surprised if you scare one up from the ground. It’s not where you’d expect to find a woodpecker, but flickers eat mainly ants and beetles, digging for them with their unusual, slightly curved bill. When they fly you’ll see a flash of color in the wings – yellow if you’re in the East, red if you’re in the West – and a bright white flash on the rump.
Surrey BC Canada
Male Northern (Red-Shafted Flicker). This is another image from my May 2018 trip to British Columbia.
While walking a nature trail in Nanaimo I heard hammering. I looked up a saw a large hole in a dead tree but couldn't see the bird. I stood there quietly trying to tell if it was on the opposite of the tree trunk.
Suddenly a head popped out of the hole. I didn't want to move and startle the bird so I waited. Finally he came out onto a branch and began to preen. I was too close for a shot with my 500mm lens and the angle was bad so I slowly moved away as best I could and took a few frames without disturbing him.
Image created on May 11, 2018 in Buttertubs Park, Nanaimo on Vancouver Island, British Columbia.
This Northern Flicker was foraging for ants which make up about 45% of its diet.
Taken near Fort Myers, Florida.
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Although it can climb up the trunks of trees and hammer on wood like other woodpeckers, the Northern Flicker prefers to find food on the ground. Ants are its main food, and the flicker digs in the dirt to find them. It uses its long barbed tongue to lap up the ants.
Yellow Shafted Northen Flicker. One of ny favorite yard residents in Chester County PA.
2025_03_10_EOS 7D Mark II_8148-Enhanced-NR_V1
This male northern yellow shafted flicker (Colaptes auratus) seems to have laid claim to this hollow tree, going in and out regularly as well as calling loudly while perching in the entrance. Announcing to all comers that this is his.
Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus) in the aspen woods north of Thorhild, Alberta, Canada.
15 June, 2016.
Slide # GWB_20160615_5035.CR2
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This trio of Northern Flickers (Colaptes auratus) were among several that were flitting about in this bare tree on a recent day. They were quite a distance away for this shot, across a body of water, but it helped that the birds were in direct sunlight.
Male Flicker takes a break from looking for insects and relaxes in the grass covered with the early morning dew. Smythe Park, Toronto, Ontario.
Among woodpeckers, Northern flickers are ground-foraging champs, especially when it comes to ants. Unlike typical woodpeckers, they hop around on open areas or forest floors, using their sharp, curved beaks to poke into soil or flip over debris.
Once they locate an ant colony, they bury their long bill into the soil and jab that long, sticky tongue in, slurping up ants and larvae. They’ll even hammer at anthills to break them open, or forage rotting wood for carpenter ants. An adaptation to expand the food sources in their territory, that most woodpeckers don't utilize.
Our beautiful world, pass it on.
A fiercely florescent Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus) feeding on Suet which is attached to the rail of our deck stairs.
The male really stood out with his nape colours. He has been making a nuisance of himself by hammering on our chimney cap. Typical Spring territorial behaviour, but it's a bit annoying!
New Britain Pa.
Many thanks to all who take the time to view, comment and fave my images. Enjoy the day.
Not many ants around, so this flicker was rooting around in the grass for what ever was edible.
Rondeau Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada, March 21, 2025.
Colaptes auratus
Although it can climb up the trunks of trees and hammer on wood like other woodpeckers, the Northern Flicker prefers to find food on the ground. Ants are its main food, and the flicker digs in the dirt to find them. It uses its long barbed tongue to lap up the ants.
Two male Yellow-shafted Flickers called from opposite sides of a very large tree at Lake St. Clair Metropark.
The Red-shafted Flickers are common in western States; Yellow-shafted is more common in eastern States. Both are called Northern Flicker.
A Flicker visited our suet bird feeder - such a magnificent bird!
Still a bit of suet on the tip of it's beak!
This Northern Flicker (Yellow-shafted Flicker) was really working a dead tree trunk, relentlessly rearing his head back, and thrusting his bill forward into a hole he was opening in the trunk. Small wood chips and dust were blown onto his face, and he furiously scratched his head with his right foot. I think something irritated his eye, which was closed during the scratching (as can be seen in the picture).
being a 'birder' to an extent I really have mixed feelings about these effective little predators...but then again, it is the nature of things..
The gilded flicker (Colaptes chrysoides) is a large-sized woodpecker (mean length of 29 cm (11 in)) of the Sonoran, Yuma, and eastern Colorado Desert regions of the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico including all of the Baja Peninsula except the extreme northwestern region. Golden yellow underwings distinguish the gilded flicker from the northern flicker found within the same region, which have red underwings.
The gilded flicker most frequently builds its nest hole in a majestic saguaro cactus, excavating a nest hole nearer the top than the ground.The cactus defends itself against water loss into the cavity of the nesting hole by secreting sap that hardens into a waterproof structure that is known as a saguaro boot. Northern flickers, on the other hand, nest in riparian trees and very rarely inhabit saguaros. Gilded flickers occasionally hybridize with northern flickers in the narrow zones where their range and habitat overlap.
Los Angeles. California.
Northern Flicker. Young one will flap and complain until it is fed. It is commonly found on the ground where it will run a few steps and stop, run a few more steps and stop, until it finds an anthill. Ants are their most important source of food. One Flicker's stomach was found to contain more than 5,000 ants. It also eats a variety of other insects and wild fruit, especially wild cherries, dogwood, sumac and poison ivy. During the winter it is not afraid to visit suet feeders. IMG_0345