Dr. Paul L. Errington (1936) writes an interesting story on the winter-killing of flickers in central Iowa. By a careful study of the droppings of the three birds that he studied, it appeared that they were much weakened by improper food, too large a proportion of indigestible seeds, mainly those of the sumac, and not enough animal food, which ordinarily amounts to more than half of the average food supply.
M. P. Skinner (1928), writing of the Sandhills of North Carolina, says: “Flickers stay in the Sandhills all winter, but the infrequent snowstorms cause them lots of trouble in finding food. On January 10, 1927, I found quite a little coterie of birds had scratched the leaves under a dogwood tree until they had a space twelve feet in diameter more or less cleared of snow. Here, among other species of birds, were two Flickers foraging among the leaves for fallen dogwood berries. These berries were probably eaten until weather conditions became better for insect catching. Even during winter, ants are fairly plentiful for the Sandhill Flickers, especially on warm days.”
COLAPTES CAFER COLLARIS Vigors
RED-SHAFTED FLICKER
Plate [37]
HABITS
This western representative of our well-known eastern flicker is so closely related to it and so similar to it in all its habits that practically all that has been written about the northern flicker would apply equally well to the red-shafted species. The two differ strikingly in coloration, but the color pattern is similar in both, and the fact that they interbreed so freely and extensively where their ranges come together shows their close relationship. The only differences in their habitats, nesting, and feeding habits are due to the differences in environments.
The red-shafted flicker is a wide-ranging species through many types of open country or sparsely wooded regions, from the Rocky Mountains to sea level on the Pacific coast. It is a common bird near human habitations in thinly settled towns and villages and in agricultural regions, as well as in the wilder foothills and mountain slopes up to timberline, but not on the treeless plains or deserts. The Weydemeyers (1928), referring to its haunts in northwestern Montana, give a good idea of its habitat there, which would doubtless apply equally well throughout its range elsewhere; they say: “The Flicker is most abundant about farms and in cut-over woods, nesting commonly near barnyards and in pastures. An observer will note fewer and fewer individuals as he passes from cultivated farms into stump-lands; from there to virgin forests of fir, larch, and yellow pine; thence into the lodgepole pine and white pine woods of the lower part of the Canadian zone; and onward into denser forests of alpine fir, spruce, and arborvitae. But he will find the birds increasing in numbers on the rocky mountain slopes and upward through the Hudsonian zone, where the species ranges to timberline.”
Milton P. Skinner says in his Yellowstone Park notes: “This bird is found at all elevations from the lowest at 5,300 feet to timberline at 9,500 feet, and in practically all kinds of habitat except the largest opens, and even there I have seen it flying across from side to side. It is in the sagebrush areas, in the borderland between forest and open, in detached groves, and even in heavy forest.
“They are often seen on the ground, especially in May, but also in June and July. Sometimes they are in the road. I have seen them frequently in the grass and perched on a bowlder or a prostrate log. In addition to these treeless and brushless localities, I often see flickers on the ground under sagebrushes and greasewood; on the ground in a grove of cedars and limber pines; under aspens, willows, cedars, firs; and on the ground amid the stumps of a former fir forest. I have-seen them in groves of mixed lodgepole pines and aspens and in meadows where there were only groves of willow bushes.”