Courtship.—In the same notes Mr. Skinner says: “On April 29, 1915, I saw a pair of flickers ‘dancing.’ They were on a dead lodgepole, and although there was not much movement of the feet, the body was bent from side to side and there was a constant ‘juggling’ or ‘jigging’ motion. The head was tilted back and the bill pointed up at an angle of sixty degrees, with the neck outstretched. The neck, head, and bill were in constant motion; the motion of the bill reminded me of a musical director’s baton. Intervals of rest alternated with periods of motion; the whole thing lasted perhaps 5 minutes.”
Nesting.—Major Bendire (1895) says on this subject:
Its favorite nesting sites are old rotten stubs or trees, such as cottonwoods, willows, sycamores, junipers, oaks, and pines. It nests also in holes in banks, in the sides of houses, in gate posts, etc. * * *
Among some peculiar nesting sites of this species the following deserve mention:
Mr. Walter B. Bryant gives the following: “One of these was in a bridge bulkhead, a few feet above the Carson River, Nevada. The interior of the structure was filled with gravel and large stones, among which the eggs were deposited. Another pair used a target butt, at a much-frequented range, as a substitute for a stump. A third nest was in a sand bank, 3 feet from the top and 10 from the creek. This hole was apparently specially prepared, and not one made by a ground squirrel, such holes being sometimes used by these birds.”
Mr. Charles A. Allen, of Nicasio, Calif., found a pair of red-shafted flickers nesting in a similar situation in a creek bank, the burrow containing seven eggs, which he took. About ten days later, happening to pass the same spot, he examined the hole again and found it occupied by a California Screech Owl, which in the meantime had deposited four eggs. Some two weeks subsequently he examined it for a third time, and on this occasion the tenant proved to be a Sparrow Hawk, which was setting on five handsome eggs. There was no nesting material present on any occasion, the eggs lying on some loose dirt.
Others have noted the bank-nesting habit of this flicker, which seems to be rather common. Most of the nests, however, are excavated in trees or stubs, at heights varying from ground level to 100 feet above the ground. We found them nesting commonly in the Huachuca Mountains, Ariz., in the sycamores in the canyons and in the tall pines near the summits at 9,000 feet. A large majority of the nests will be found between 8 and 25 feet above the ground. Dawson (1923) mentions a nest “in a stump only two feet high, and its eggs rested virtually upon the ground.” Walter P. Taylor (1912) mentions a nest in a cavity in a haystack, in the desert regions of Humboldt County, Nev., where there were practically no trees. This flicker also nests frequently in telegraph and other poles, also far too often in buildings, where it drills a hole through the outer wall and lays its eggs on a beam or other flat surface, accumulating enough chips to keep the eggs from rolling.
Florence A. Merriam Bailey (1896) watched a red-shafted flicker excavating its nest-hole, of which she says: “The flicker hung with claws planted in the hole, and with its tail braced at an angle under it, leaned forward to excavate. Using its feet as a pivot, it gradually swung in farther and farther; and when it had gone so far that it had to reach back to throw out its chips, it swung in and out on its feet like an automatic toy wound up for the performance. When it had been building for a week, only the tip of its tail protruded from the nest hole as it worked.”
Mrs. Irene G. Wheelock (1904) says: “The site having been chosen, the male clings to the surface and marks with his bill a more or less regular circle in a series of dots, then begins excavating inside this area, using his bill, not with a sidewise twist, as do many of the woodpecker family, but striking downwards and prying off the chips as with a pickaxe. When his mate has rested and wishes to share in the labor, she calls from a near-by tree and he instantly quits his task.”
Dr. and Mrs. Grinnell (Grinnell, Dixon, and Linsdale, 1930) made the following observations on this species, while excavating its nest-hole: