The bird entered the hole, entirely out of view, at 8:54, reappeared from within at 9:05, when it rested a minute with the head partly out; then it proceeded to bring out from within load after load of chips, which showered down as if of fine, almost sawdust-like size. Forty-five such loads were counted to 9:10, delivered with striking regularity. Twelve loads delivered were counted in one sixty-second period. At 9:10 the bird disappeared again till 9:15, when its head appeared and twenty-seven loads were flipped out in three minutes; then after a long pause, till 9:19, the other flicker arrived, with scythe-whetting note, and both birds flew off. One of them returned at 9:29, flipped out several loads of chips and left at 9:31. Digging in this particular stump must have been easy and hence rapid.
Eggs.—The red-shafted flicker lays five to twelve eggs to a set. Probably, if the experiment were tried, it would prove to be as prolific an egg layer as its eastern relative, though I have found no evidence to that effect. The eggs are indistinguishable from those of the northern flicker. The measurements of 57 eggs average 28.18 by 21.85 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 35.56 by 20.32, 27.94 by 24.89, 25.40 by 20.83, and 27.68 by 19.30 millimeters.
Young.—Mrs. Wheelock (1904) says of the young: “For nearly three weeks they are fed by regurgitation, and after that time the insects brought are masticated by the parents. * * *
“After they are old enough to leave the nursery, they follow their parents about for nearly two weeks, begging to be fed and gradually learning to hunt for themselves. This lesson is wisely taught by the parents, who place the food under a crevice in the bark, in full sight of the young, who must pick it out or go hungry. The baby cocks his head wisely, looks at it, and proceeds to pull it out and dine.”
Plumages.—The sequence of plumages and molts, from fledgling to adult, in the red-shafted flicker is similar to that of the northern flicker, but there is one marked difference in the color pattern in the juvenal plumage; whereas in auratus young birds of both sexes have black malar patches, in cafer only the young male has the red malar patches. Kidgway (1914) describes the juvenal male of the red-shafted flicker as “similar to the adult male, but coloration duller, gray of throat, etc., duller, more brownish, black jugular patch smaller and less sharply defined, black spots on under parts less sharply defined, less rounded, feathers of pileum indistinctly tipped with paler, and red malar stripes less bright, less uniform, and black terminal area on under side of tail not sharply defined.” The young female is similar to the young male, but the malar region is grayish brown instead of red. The juvenal plumage is worn through summer, and a complete molt during fall produces a first-winter plumage that is practically adult. Adults have a complete annual molt late in summer and fall.
A most interesting and unique case, among American birds at least, of hybridizing on an extensive scale over a wide region occurs between Colaptes auratus and Colaptes cafer. We found this most beautifully illustrated in southwestern Saskatchewan, where pure-blooded birds of both species were taken, together with quite a series of hybrid birds showing all the intermediate grades of plumage. Almost all the males showed some traces of the red malar stripes of cafer, and nearly all showed some traces of the red nuchal crescent of auratus; the other characters seemed to be less constant. I collected a pure-blooded male auratus and a nearly pure-blooded cafer female, which were apparently mated. And two young in juvenal plumage, one almost pure cafer and the other equally near auratus, were taken from the same family.
Although the general color patterns of the two species are strikingly similar, or parallel, the characters that separate them are radically qualitative rather than quantitative, so that the numerous hybrids cannot by any means be considered as intermediates between subspecies. No two species of a genus could well present more striking contrasts in coloration in such similar patterns.
In one species the quills are red, in the other yellow; the male has a red malar stripe in one and a black stripe in the other; neither sex in cafer has the red nuchal crescent, while both sexes have it in auratus; cafer has the throat and fore neck gray and the top of the head and hind neck brown, while these colors are reversed in auratus. These contrasting colors may be blended or mixed in an almost endless variety of patterns in the hybrids; and the patterns are often asymmetrical, the opposite sides of the bird being quite different. Some specimens of cafer show the first traces of auratus blood by the presence of a few black feathers in the malar stripe, or traces of the red nuchal crescent. Slight traces of cafer blood in auratus appear with a mixture of red in the black malar strip, or with a tinge of orange or reddish in the wings or tail. Between these two extremes there is every degree of blending or mixture of the characters.
For many years after these interesting hybrids were discovered and described by Baird (1858), they were known only from the upper Missouri and Yellowstone River region. Later they were found to be widely distributed from the western border of the Great Plains westward to the Pacific coast, and from Texas to southern Canada. While the center of abundance of birds showing thoroughly mixed characters seems to lie between the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains, evidence of hybrid blood is much more widely dispersed in a gradually diminishing degree, more strongly westward and to a lesser degree eastward. Dr. J. A. Allen (1892), in his excellent paper on this subject, says: “Specimens with a slight amount of red in the malar stripe are represented in the material I have examined from Massachusetts, Long Island, New Jersey (five specimens), Pennsylvania, Virginia, Florida (several), Louisiana (several), Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois (several), Michigan (two), and Minnesota. They seem to be quite as frequent along the Atlantic seaboard as at any point east of the Mississippi River.”
Food.—Professor Beal’s (1910) study of 118 stomachs of the two western races of the red-shafted flicker showed that 54 percent of the food was animal and 46 percent vegetable matter. Of the animal food, beetles constituted 3 percent, most of which were harmful; there were only a few predatory carabids; ants made up 45 percent of the year’s food; other Hymenoptera totaled 1 percent, and miscellaneous items, such as caterpillars, crickets, and spiders, amounted to 5 percent of the food.