Content for this page researched and created by Carly Duncan.

The Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus) is a woodpecker that is commonly found in both the Eastern and Western United States, as well as Canada. They are a little under a foot long with either a yellow shaft or a red shaft depending on their geographic location (US Geological Survey). Red-shafted Northern Flickers are found in the west while yellow shafted Northern Flickers are found in the East. Although they are different colors, more than 90% of modern day Northern Flickers in the North American curve are said to be hybrids of an older species similar to Northern Flickers (Short). These hybrid zones are defined as a certain area where mating has led to a variation of different genes in Northern Flickers (Moore and Price).

To be considered a hybrid zone, the Northern Flickers in that particular region must have been absolutely isolated before hybridization occurred (Moore and Buchanan).  In a southwestern hybrid zone, Northern Flickers actually have different mtDNA patterns. This is thought to be the case due to natural selection (Moore, Graham, and Price). There is also proof that multiple hybrid zones are present in the United States, meaning that different environments played a major role on how the Northern Flicker evolved (Grudzien, Moore, Cook, and Tagle). No matter what color shaft they have or which hybrid zone they evolved from, all northern flickers have black spotted wings and a tan/brown color covering the rest of their body (Cornell Lab of Ornithology).

Their diets consist of insects found on the ground, mainly ants. However, they are also known to eat fruit (Ohio Department of Natural Resources). They also have no preference whether they collect food in front of female or male Northern Flickers. However, once a Northern Flicker has mated, they tend to search for food away from other birds instead of in one big flock (Gow and Wiebe). Since their diet consists of creatures that are often found on the ground, they are very rarely seen sitting in branches among the trees (Wiebe and Moore). It would not be unusual if you were to surprise one just by walking around near a nest. However, since they are on the ground most of the time, they do prefer “open-aired” habitats such as suburbs, trees lining wooded areas, or even parks (Cornell Lab of Ornithology).

Even though they find their food on the ground, they nest in cavities in different types of trees (Cornell Lab of Ornithology). They don’t prefer one type of tree to another; however, they do prefer soft-wooded trees to hard-wooded trees. They lay more eggs when they make nest cavities in soft wooded trees (Martin). Woodpeckers generate 95% of all tree cavities found throughout the eastern United States as well as parts of Canada (Cockle, Martin, and Wesołowski). These numbers are thought to be so high because woodpeckers, and especially Northern Flickers, are known to never occupy the same cavity (Bonar).

Northern Flickers migrate the farthest of all woodpeckers. They often fly to the most northern parts of Mexico or to the southern parts of the United States, such as Texas. However, depending on the bird, some prefer to stay in the northern regions of the United States.

They only migrate during the winter, often returning once the spring weather arrives. (Cornell Lab of Ornithology). Whenever they return home after migrating, they will either invade another woodpecker’s cavity (abandoned or not) or create one themselves using particularly weak trees. Their nests are, on average, three meters off of the ground. They are also six centimeters wide, and they can go as far as 40 centimeters downward from the entrance of the cavity (Fisher and Wiebe). Northern Flickers like their cavities facing the southwest so that they act as a natural incubator. They also face downwards instead of facing straight (Conner). Whenever it comes to certain gas levels within Northern Flicker cavities, the gas concentration was more so based on the time of day than it was on the time of year. Carbon monoxide and oxygen levels often fluctuated at night, but they were mainstream throughout different seasons, given that the nest was continuously occupied (Howe, Kilgore, and Colby).

Northern Flickers lay anywhere from three to ten eggs, and these eggs incubate for approximately two weeks (US Geographical Survey). Once the eggs do hatch, it takes about a month for the birds to become strong enough to leave the nest (Ohio Department of Natural Resources).  Northern Flickers show no certain preference for body size while mating; however, color plays an extremely important role while picking out a mate.

Researchers believe this color obsession is due to the boundary between Northern Flickers coming out of certain hybrid zones (Wiebe 2000). Once a pair of Northern Flickers have mated, they stay faithful to each other as well as to their young for the rest of their life. However, if a Northern Flicker is widowed, females are more likely to abandon their nests than males are (Wiebe 2005). Females also prefer soft wood whenever they are protecting unhatched eggs (Martin). If the wood is soft, the number of eggs does not matter to the mother because she is comfortable. However, if the mother is uncomfortable with the wood her cavity is made out of, she will be inclined to take care of fewer eggs.

The most prominent cause of harm is parasites. Different types of parasites are known not to kill Northern Flicker offspring, but instead delay their growth and development (Wiebe 2009). However, a case of the pox appeared in the mid-1960’s to a strain of Northern Flickers in Canada (Kirmse). These birds showed abnormal bumps on multiple parts of the body, which were thought to be from abnormal growths of epithelial cells. Just like the parasite case, these strange epithelial growths did not seem to kill the Northern Flickers involved.

Although humans just see Northern Flickers as pretty birds to look at now, they were very useful to humans a long time ago. Northern Flicker feathers were found on hunting weapons that were melting in Southern Yukon (Dove, Hare, and Heacker). Although they were probably used as either decoration or as means to distinguish a certain person’s property, this proves that Northern Flickers were more beneficial to humans than we originally thought. This also further proves that Northern Flickers evolved to live in different environments and have generally migrated over time.

General Bibliography

Bonar, Richard L. “Availability of pileated woodpecker cavities and use by other species.” The Journal of wildlife management (2000): 52-59. Web. Accessed 19 Sept. 2016.

Fisher, Ryan J., and Karen L. Wiebe. “Nest site attributes and temporal patterns of northern flicker nest loss: effects of predation and competition.” Oecologia 147.4 (2006): 744-753.Web. Accessed 19 Sept. 2016.

Gow, E. A., & Wiebe, K. L. “Northern flicker mates foraging on renewing patches within home ranges avoid competition not by separate niches but by segregation”. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 69(1) (2015)., 101-108. Web. Accessed 19 Sept. 2016.

Moore, William S., and Drew B. Buchanan. “Stability of the northern flicker hybrid zone in historical times: implications for adaptive speciation theory.” Evolution (1985): 135-151. Web. Accessed 16 Sept. 2016.

Moore, William S., and Jeff T. Price. “Nature of selection in the northern flicker hybrid zone and its implications for speciation theory.” Hybrid zones and the evolutionary process (1993): 196-225. Web. Accessed 16 Sept. 2016.

Moore, William S., John H. Graham, and Jeff T. Price. “Mitochondrial DNA variation in the northern flicker (Colaptes auratus, Aves).” Molecular biology and evolution 8.3 (1991): 327-344. Web. Accessed 15 Sept. 2016.

“Northern Flicker”. (2012). Ohio Department of Natural Resources. Web. Accessed 15 Sept. 2016.

“Northern Flicker”. (2016). Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Web. Accessed 30 Octo. 2016.

“Northern Flicker”. (2016). US Geological Survey. Web. Accessed 16 Sept. 2016.

Wiebe, Karen L. “Assortative mating by color in a population of hybrid Northern Flickers.” The Auk 117.2 (2000): 525-529. Web. Accessed 17 Sept. 2016.

Wiebe, Karen L. and William S. Moore. “Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus), The Birds of North America (P. G. Rodewald, Ed.)”. Cornell Lab of Ornithology. (2008). Web. Accessed 16 Sept. 2016.

Scientific Bibliography

Cockle, Kristina L., Kathy Martin, and Tomasz Wesołowski. “Woodpeckers, decay, and the future of cavity‐nesting vertebrate communities worldwide.” Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 9.7 (2011): 377-382. Web. Accessed 14 Sept. 2016.

Conner, Richard N. “Orientation of Entrances to Woodpecker Nest Cavities.” The Auk 92.2 (1975): 371-74. Web. Accessed 16 Sept. 2016.

Dove, Carla J., Hare P. Gregory, and Heacker Marcy. “Identification of Ancient Feather Fragments Found in Melting Alpine Ice Patches in Southern Yukon.” Arctic 58.1 (2005): 38-43. Web. Accessed 19 Sept. 2016

Grudzien, Thaddeus A., Moore William S., J. Richard Cook, and Danilo Tagle. “Genie Population Structure and Gene Flow in the Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus) Hybrid Zone.” The Auk 104.4 (1987): 654-64. Web. Accessed 16 Sept. 2016.

Howe, Stephen, Delbert L. Kilgore Jr, and Conrad Colby. “Respiratory gas concentrations and temperatures within nest cavities of the northern flicker (Colaptes auratus).” Canadian journal of zoology 65.6 (1987): 1541-1547. Web. Accessed 19 Sept. 2016.

Kirmse, Peter. “Host specificity and long persistence of pox infection in the flicker (Colaptes auratus).” Bulletin of the Wildlife Disease Association 3.1 (1967): 14-20. Web. Accessed 16 Sept. 2016.

Martin, Thomas E. “Evolutionary Determinants of Clutch Size in Cavity-Nesting Birds: NestPredation or Limited Breeding Opportunities?” The American Naturalist 142.6 (1993): 937-46. Web. Accessed 16 Sept. 2016

Short, Lester L. “Hybridization in the flickers (Colaptes) of North America. Bulletin of the AMNH; v. 129, article 4.” (1965). Web. Accessed 19 Sept. 2016.

Wiebe, Karen L. “Asymmetric costs favor female desertion in the facultatively polyandrous northern flicker (Colaptes auratus): a removal experiment.” Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 57.5 (2005). Web. Accessed 15 Sept. 2016.

Wiebe, Karen L. “Nest excavation does not reduce harmful effects of ectoparasitism: an experiment with a woodpecker, the northern flicker Colaptes auratus.” Journal of Avian Biology 40.2 (2009): 166-172. Web. Accessed 19 Sept. 2016.

Image References

Flicker. Yahoo. 2012. Web. 16 Sept. 2016. <http://www.flickr.com/photos>

1. Northern Flicker (Clyde Barrett) (Creative Commons)
2. Northern Flicker / Colaptes auratus (Roy Priest) (Creative Commons)
3. Northern Flickers (Howard Powell) (Creative Commons)